Sometimes, when Dude & I are talking, he asks about things I had when I was his age (ie, back in the early 80s) - it amuses him we didn’t have video games, that the Walkman hadn’t been invented, cameras were things you had to carry separately and phones were wired to the wall. I can see why he’s amused but I still have a yearning for that time, when things were perhaps a bit simpler, because sometimes I believe they were better. And as we drift towards summer, that presents the perfect example - the Summer Special!
1979
Children’s comics now aren’t a patch on what they were back in the 70s and 80s (and even before that, I imagine). Back when I was an avid comics reader, DC Thomson and Fleetway published a whole raft of weeklies that catered for most tastes, presented on pulpy-paper with a splash of colour, that kept us entertained. That’s not the case now - take a look in any newsagent and supermarket and you’ll only see a few titles, sealed in plastic bags with all manner of doohickies included, like stickers, trading cards and cheap plastic toys you just know will fall apart before the day is out.
As kids, if we were off on holiday (or a substantial car trip) or had a lazy day in the back garden to look forward to, a Summer Special was a real treat. A one-off edition of the weekly comic that was thicker and more colourful (and generally had a glossy cover), it gave your favourite characters a new location for adventures - Roger the Dodger at the seaside, say or Billy Whizz enjoying his summer holiday - or offered up longer stories, as happened in the Marvel comics imports.
You don’t really get Summer Specials any more and comics historian Lew Stringer (on his excellent blog) suggests that “today's retailers dislike them because they occupy valuable shelf space for too many months.” He goes on to say, “the other reason is down to how comics themselves have evolved. With regular UK comics now being full colour glossies, how can a Summer Special stand out as "special"?”
Fleetway launched a Jack And Jill Summer Special in 1961 and Odhams, in 1962, produced one for Eagle. After publishing a combined Dandy/Beano Special filled with reprints in 1963, DC Thomson launched individual Specials for both, with brand new material, the following year. When IPC took over Fleetway in 1968, the format of the special changed, gaining the glossy cover and more pages. The Summer Special really took off in the 70s, with seaside towns (in particular) ordering extra copies since they were pretty much guaranteed sellers - after all, those kids (a new batch every week) needed entertaining!
I think it’s a shame Dude has missed out on the pleasure of the Summer Special and here are a few from my golden-era of reading them (the late 70s and into the early 80s). What were your favourites?
1972 - I didn't know this existed until I started researching this blog but I really want to see it!
1976 - war comics were a staple part of my childhood
To mark the publication of her latest novel, After He's Gone, here's a guest post from my friend Jane Isaac.
Thank you so much for inviting me onto your blog, Mark! This marks the publication of not only a new book for me, but also the start of a new crime series and a slight change of course in my publishing journey.
Those who’ve read my previous work will know that I currently write the DCI Helen Lavery series and the DI Will Jackman series, both published by Legend Press. While I will still be working with Legend on my backlist, as well as possibly more titles in future, I decided to dip my toe in the water of self-publishing this year to see if I could follow the process myself and become a hybrid author (a term used for those who mix traditional and self-publishing, although it conjures up pictures of roses and horticulture more than books to me!). For that purpose, I wrote a new crime series introducing Family Liaison Officer, DC Beth Chamberlain.
It can be a difficult decision to change series, especially when readers have invested so much in your characters, but I see it more as a break. I’d love to work with both Helen and Will again in the future, but wanted to try something different for the moment, to keep the stories fresh.
This new series has been an interesting one to research and write as it offers a different perspective on murder investigations, focusing on and around the victim’s family. Family Liaison Officers are deployed to support families of victims of serious crime like homicide, road death and other critical incidents. They spend a lot of time updating them on the investigation and feeding back information and often get very close. And since most people are killed by someone they know or someone close to them, it affords the opportunity to unravel some really intriguing secrets!
Self-publishing has certainly presented a huge learning curve – now I really know what goes on behind the scenes in the publishing world! I followed the same process I’ve been through many a time in traditional publishing, but this time I had to hire my own help along the way. Like many self-published authors, I spent a long time choosing the right structural editor, copy editor, proofer and formatter for my book so that the end product was a quality piece of work. I also had great fun working directly with the cover artists!
For me, it seems it’s all about the team you have around you and the timetabling. As long as you source good recommended people to work with and stick to a rigid timetable it seems that everything falls into place. I’m not saying there weren’t any nail-biting or pulling-your-hair-out moments, because there definitely were(!), but it’s like learning anything new – you have to do the training. I think next time I embark on a self-published title I will feel certainly feel more experienced and more organised, although I’m the first to admit that I still have a lot to learn.
I’ve just completed the first draft of the second DC Beth Chamberlain novel which is scheduled for release at the end of this year. One of the joys of writing a series is that, by the end of the first book, you know the character implicitly and it’s wonderful to challenge and stretch them in other directions. Plus, I get the chance to follow my self-publishing journey again as I start to prepare it for release. Watch this space there!
‘The safety catch on the Glock snapped as it was released. Her stomach curdled as she watched the face of death stretch and curve. Listened to the words drip from his mouth, ‘Right. Let’s begin, shall we?’
You think you know him. Until he’s dead.
When Cameron Swift is gunned down outside his family home, DC Beth Chamberlain is appointed Family Liaison Officer: a dual role that requires her to support the family, and also investigate them.
As the case unfolds and the body count climbs, Beth discovers that nothing is quite as it appears and everyone, it seems, has secrets.
Even the dead…
If you'd like to know more about Jane, you can read an interview I conducted with her on the blog here.
Jane Isaac lives with her detective husband (very helpful
for research!) and her daughter in rural Northamptonshire, UK where she can
often be found trudging over the fields with her Labrador, Bollo. Her debut, An
Unfamiliar Murder, was nominated as best mystery in the 'eFestival of Words
Best of the Independent eBook awards 2013.' The follow up, The Truth Will Out,
was nominated as ‘Thriller of the Month – April 2014’ by E-Thriller.com.
After He’s Gone is Jane’s sixth novel and the first in a new
series featuring Family Liaison Officer, DC Beth Chamberlain. The second DC
Beth Chamberlain novel will be released later in 2018.
Ralph Angus McQuarrie (13th June 1929 - 3rd March 2012) was born in Gary, Indiana and began art classes at the age of ten. After graduation and active service in the Korean War (where he survived a shot to the head thanks to his helmet lining), he studied at the Art Centre College of Design in California - alongside ‘visual futurist’ (to be) Syd Mead - and in 1950 began working at the Boeing Company in Seattle as a technical illustrator. Moving to California, he worked for Reel Three which produced illustrations for NASA that were used on CBS News’ live coverage of the Apollo space program and that led to a call from Hal Barwood & Matthew Robbins who needed illustrations to help sell a film they were planning. Whilst Ralph wasn't particularly interested in sci-fi, he “was in love with airplanes and spacecraft" and working on the illustrations “felt like that was really the place I should be. I had found what I should be doing.”
Though Barwood & Robbins, Ralph was contacted by their friend George Lucas for help with his own sci-fi project. "He was interested in talking to me...about a big space-fantasy film. A couple [of] years went by and George did American Graffiti…then one day he called to see if I'd be interested in doing something for Star Wars.”
with George Lucas
The script was complicated and Lucas knew he needed something to sell it, without having to rely on the imaginations of the studio executives. “George said, I’ll give you this script, read it, and when you come to something you like, make a little pencil drawing and we’ll look at it later.” They met every couple of weeks with Ralph doing his “best to depict what I thought the film should look like. I didn't think the film would ever get made. My impression was it was too expensive. There wouldn't be enough of an audience. It's just too complicated. But George knew a lot of things that I didn't."
On the strength of the paintings and the pitch, Lucas was given funding to start pre-production. One of the most famous pictures was one of the first - C3PO and R2-D2 in front of a cliff on Tatooine. “George wanted Tatooine to be a desert planet with twin suns...so I was thinking, 'Desert, extreme heat, no plants, just rocks and dust”. C3PO came from a “photograph of the female robot from Metropolis (1927), [George] said he’d like Threepio to look like that, except to make him a boy.” Anthony Daniels saw the painting (which you can see at the end of this post) when he went to audition and was touched by the image. “Without his inspirational art,” Daniels says in Empire Of Dreams, “I would not be C-3PO. I once said to him, ‘This is all YOUR fault!’ Then I thanked him.”
Concept sketch of the heroes
As well as the sets and ships, Ralph also designed R2-D2, Chewbacca and Darth Vader. In the script, Vader had flowing black robes “that would flutter in the wind” but as the Sith Lord had to cross between his Star Destroyer and the Rebel Blockade Runner in the vacuum of space, Ralph suggested he needed a breathing mask. Lucas agreed, suggested adding a samurai helmet “and Darth Vader was born. Simple as that.”
“Working on Star Wars was a special opportunity to start from the ground up,” Ralph later said. “Being able to create new characters, vehicles and different worlds ... and since when I started it wasn’t even clear that the film would be made, I didn’t have to limit myself.”
As part of the newly created Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) - “there was some sort of a rumour going around that [nobody] over thirty worked on Star Wars and I was 45” - he also produced several key matte paintings, his first foray into the artform.
Following his work on Star Wars, he produced designs for the Mothership in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977) and worked on a planned Star Trek film (Planet Of The Titans) which never happened. Ralph moved on to the Battlestar Galactica TV series (1978), designing the craft (his original version of the Viper was re-worked for Buck Rogers In The 25th Century (1979)), the aliens and Cylons, producing 24 paintings in total to help sell the project.
Working on the Cloud City landing platform matte painting from "The Empire Strikes Back"
Back in the ILM fold, Ralph was concept designer for the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978), which notably featured the debut of Boba Fett, arguably one of his most popular character designs. For The Empire Strikes Back, he produced concept art and production paintings - including the first glimpse of the AT-ATs - as well as several matte paintings. He also played the uncredited role of General Pharl McQuarrie at the Hoth base (of which an action figure was made for the Star Wars 30th anniversary) before leaving ILM to go freelance.
He worked on two back-to-back Steven Spielberg films, creating on-screen artwork for Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) and the spaceship from E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial (1982). “Steven was at ILM one day and I talked with him for about five minutes - he said he [wanted] ET’s space ship to look like Dr. Suess designed it. I thought that was kind of interesting, very off the wall.”
top left - artwork of "the power of the ark" as seen in Raiders Of The Lost Ark - right - ET's ship bottom - concept design for the Mothership in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
Ralph went back to ILM as conceptual artist for Return Of The Jedi and after his work on the project was finished, George Lucas made a point of thanking him in front of everyone. Nilo Rodis-Jamero, also a designer on the film, said in interview, “Ralph stood up and said, ‘I was one of the first people that George hired,’ because Ralph is an unbelievably humble man. George got up and said, ‘No, you were the first one.’”
from left - Ken Ralston, Ralph McQuarrie, Molly Ringwald (presenter), Scott Farrar and David Berry
He was the concept artist on Cocoon (1985) for which ILM won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Supervisor Ken Ralston said, “Ralph is a big reason why we were honoured. Simply stated Ralph McQuarrie has the ability to paint dreams.”
After working on Masters Of The Universe he finally got his Star Trek chance when, working at ILM, he produced concept designs for 23rd century San Francisco, Starfleet Headquarters, shuttlecrafts, whale tanks, and storyboards for the fourth film The Voyage Home. He reunited with Matthew Robbins to work on *batteries not included (1987) and his last credit was for Nightbreed (1990) where he painted the history of the breed as a sixty-foot long mural which features heavily in the opening credits.
He was offered the design role for the Star Wars prequel trilogy but felt he’d “run out of steam” and retired, though his Star Wars concept paintings were subsequently displayed in art exhibitions, including the acclaimed 1999 show Star Wars: The Magic Of Myth. As it is, his original designs and unused concept art are still influencing the saga, both with the animated TV shows, the sequels and the stand-alone films.
McQuarrie died at his Berkeley, California home from complications of Parkinson's disease and is survived by his wife Joan.
Following his passing, George Lucas said, "His genial contribution, in the form of unequalled production paintings, propelled and inspired all of the cast and crew of the original Star Wars trilogy. When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph's fabulous illustrations and say, 'do it like this'. We will all be benefiting from his oeuvre for generations to come. Beyond that, I will always remember him as a kind, patient and wonderfully talented friend and collaborator.”
Filmography Star Wars (1977) (production illustrator) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) (spaceship designer) Battlestar Galactica (1978) (production and concept illustrator) Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) (production illustrator) The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (design consultant and conceptual artist) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (illustrator) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (scenic artist/spaceship design) Return of the Jedi (1983) (conceptual artist) Cocoon (1985) (conceptual artist) Oscar for Best Visual Effects Masters of the Universe (1987) (conceptual artist) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) (visual consultant) *batteries not included (1987) (conceptual artist) Nightbreed (1990) (conceptual artist)
On holiday in Torquay in 1989, I picked up a copy of Ralph's Star Wars portfolio from a second-hand bookshop (and thankfully kept hold of it as they're worth a fortune now). Having been a big Star Wars fan from the off, I'd seen his work a lot (that little RMcQ was a real guarantee of quality) and I've always been impressed with the scope and vitality of the images. Here are a few of my favourites...
2017 marked the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, which was released in the US on 25th May though it didn't hit the UK until 29th January 1978 (following a 27th December release in London). I was lucky enough to see it in early 1978 and it remains my favourite film to this day.
To mark the anniversary, I ran a year-long blog thread about the film with new entries posted on the first Monday of each month.
Octopussy, the thirteenth James Bond film in the official
EON series (and the sixth to feature Roger Moore in the lead role), opened in
the UK
on 7th June 1983 (following its premiere on the 6th). It was directed by John Glen (the second in
his eventual five-film run), produced by Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and written
by George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum & Michael G. Wilson. Peter Lamont was the production designer, John Richardson supervised the visual effects and John Barry wrote the score.
“We stuck closely to the books in the very beginning - but
then the basic material began to wear thin,” Michael Wilson told Richard Hollis
in an interview for Marvel.
Octopussy was a short story in Ian Fleming’s 1966 collection
Octopussy and The Living Daylights, though the plot (as was the case with The
Spy Who Loved Me) is original. The film
does include elements of the story - namely the fate of Major Dexter Smythe,
who Octopussy in the film mentions was her father - and also a sequence
inspired from the short The Property Of A Lady (which was published in later
editions of the collection). Kamal
Khan’s reaction to Bond winning the backgammon game is taken from the novel
Moonraker, which hadn't been used in the film.
Octopussy was written in early 1962 (and serialised in the Daily Express
in October 1965), while Property Of A Lady was written in 1963, commissioned by
Sotheby’s for inclusion in their annual journal, The Ivory Hammer.
George MacDonald Fraser, best known for the Flashman novels,
was hired to work on early drafts of the script. He asked producer Cubby Broccoli for a list
of all the locations Bond had already visited in the films and, realising that
India (a country the writer had a lot of affection for) didn’t feature, he
lobbied for it to be the main setting.
Although his script was eventually reworked by Bond regulars Michael G.
Wilson and Richard Maibaum, a lot of his contributions remained - according to
his memoir, Fraser came up with the gorilla suit and clown outfit and he also
created the character of Kamal Khan (in the first book in the series, Flashman
is taken hostage by the Afghan prince Akbar Khan during the Anglo-Afghan War).
After completing For Your Eyes Only (which I wrote about here), Roger Moore had expressed his desire to retire from the role of James
Bond. Since he now negotiated on a
film-by-film basis and Broccoli didn’t want to push his old friend, a
semi-public search was launched to find the new Bond, with both Timothy Dalton
and James Brolin being early favourites.
Brolin got as far as screen-testing (alongside Maud Adams, standing in
as a favour to Broccoli) three times (they can be seen on the Octopussy Special
Edition DVD) before news broke that Kevin McClory was mounting a rival
production, Never Say Never Again, featuring the original Bond, Sean
Connery. Unsure of how the public would
accept the American Brolin, Broccoli contacted Roger Moore again, firm in his
belief that the already established star of the films would fare better against
Connery. For a higher salary - and
profit points - Moore agreed to return and the newspapers had a field day, with
this so-called Battle Of The Bonds.
Maud Adams’ help with the screentests led to her being
considered for the lead role, though Broccoli was initially reluctant since
she’d already appeared in The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), where her character
is killed. Sybill Danning was announced
(but apparently never cast), Faye Dunaway was deemed too expensive and Barbara
Carrera turned down the role as she wanted to work with Sean Connery in Never
Say Never Again. Broccoli eventually
re-considered and Adams was cast, though she wasn’t sure about the Octopussy
name until the producer explained it was a real title and not rude (a controversy
that would rumble on for some time). Personally, I
think she’s the perfect choice - a good actress who gives the character much
more strength than the usual Bond girl, even if she doesn’t appear until a good
way into the film. The other significant
female role, Magda, went to Kristina Wayborn, a former Miss Sweden. Broccoli and Moore had seen her play Greta Garbo in The
Silent Lovers (1980) and she had the agility and physicality to perform her
role to perfection. In a neat twist,
Adams’ female co-star in Golden Gun, Britt Ekland, was also a Swede.
Following Bernard Lee’s death in 1981, Octopussy was the
first film to feature Robert Brown as M (the character didn’t appear in For
Your Eyes Only) and, along with Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny, Desmond
Llewellyn returned as Q and enjoyed an expanded role, taking part in a key
action sequence.
Roger Moore and Louis Jourdan relax between takes on location in India
Louis Jourdan, a respected French actor and friend of both Moore and Broccoli, was offered the role of Kamal Khan after a
party he gave in Beverly Hills that the producer attended (he’d previously
turned down the role of Hugo Drax in Moonraker). John Glen felt Jourdan had “the necessary
authority to make an arresting villain” but noted the actor was often thrown by
the British crew’s penchant for practical jokes between takes. On the Inside Octopussy documentary on the Ultimate
Edition DVD, Moore comments on how Jourdan’s delivery of Octopussy amused
the cast and crew. Steven Berkoff, the charismatic
English actor, was cast as General Orlov and imbued him with a sense of mania
that works perfectly. Better known at
the time for his stage work, Berkoff and Moore had known one another for
years, having appeared in an episode of The Saint together.
The role of Gobinda, Kamal Khan’s henchman, was taken by
respected Indian actor Kabir Bedi, while one of Bond’s allies, Vijay, was
played by the tennis player Vijay Amritraj.
In a scene that should be silly but actually works, he uses a tennis
racket as a weapon during the Tuk Tuk chase, though the onlookers turning their
heads as if watching a match pushes things too far.
Roger Moore and his leading ladies - Maud Adams (left) and Kristina Wayborn (right)
Filming began on 10th August 1982 in West Berlin, for the
sequence where Bond arrives at Checkpoint Charlie with M before the production
moved to Pinewood Studios, for interiors work, on 16th August.
Exterior scenes at the circus (set in Germany) were filmed
at the American Air Force base at Upper Heyford in England while RAF Northholt,
near London, stood in for Cuba (Peter Lamont supplied palm trees to help sell
the illusion) for the pre-credits sequence.
Colonel Toro, who Bond impersonates, was played by Ken Norris, Roger
Moore’s stand-in.
John Richardson and his customised XJS
This sequence was built around the Bede BD-5J Acrostar
mini-jet, which was originally going to be used in Moonraker (1979). At 12 feet long, the single engine jet could
fly at 160mph and reach 30,000 feet, with a climb rate of 2,500 feet per
minute. Owned and piloted by J. W.
‘Corkey’ Fornof, from Louisiana, he later returned to the series to work as a
pilot on Licence To Kill (1989). Various
versions were used - Fornoff piloted the real one (he apparently offered to fly
it through Hanger 311 but it was felt to be too dangerous), a 3rd scale model
was used when the jet is seen entering and leaving while a larger model was
used for aerial shots with the missile (a prop that was actually attached to
the model). Foreground miniatures were
used for the closing doors, which I wrote about in detail here. To show the full-size jet flying through the
hanger, it was mounted on a pole attached to a cut-down Jaguar XJS, engineered
and driven by John Richardson. By
positioning the wing in front of the pole, as well as careful placement of
foreground elements and people, the pole and car were both hidden from
view. Roger Moore was at the controls on
the fly-through, though he’s barely visible.
For the explosion, Richardson
and model unit art director Michael Lamont built a tenth-scale miniature of the
hanger and its surrounding area and the pieces of debris that fly off were four
inch long plastic tiles, individually attached.
It’s a terrific effect, which stands up well today. The final quip of the sequence - “Fill her
up” - was initially removed by Glen who felt it was silly, but after watching
an early trailer that contained the line, he realised how well it went down
with the audience and kept it in.
While the first unit was in London, the aerial unit was busy
in Utah, in the US. Supervised by B. J.
Worth and performed by him (as Gobinda) and Jake Lombard (as Bond) - both of
whom had worked on the opening sequence in Moonraker - they were filmed
climbing on and around the aircraft and staging a mock fight, parachutes
carefully concealed under their clothes.
BJ Worth (left) and Jake Lombard filming the aerial sequences above Utah
In September, the production moved to the Nene Valley
railway museum near Peterborough, which doubled for Germany. Part of the action involved Bond using a
stolen Mercedes to pursue Octopussy’s train, an effect engineered by John
Richardson who altered the cars wheel base to allow it to run on the tracks. He and a stuntman did most of the driving,
though Roger Moore also took the controls.
Richardson was also responsible for the scene where the Mercedes is hit
by another train and shunted into a lake.
“It was actually fired out over the water with an air cannon,” he told
Cinefex magazine. “We had to fire it
from the other side of the track so that it came across in front of the train
and looked like it was being hit.” A
local amateur film enthusiast, Ken Burns, worked as an extra on the film and
shot six minutes worth of Super-8 footage, which is available on the Ultimate
Edition DVD. Well liked by the crew,
Burns, who played an East German Border guard, was known on set as the ‘3rd
Unit’.
Kristina Wayborn, Roger Moore and Maud Adams on location at Nene Valley
The second unit stayed on at Nene Valley for several weeks,
filming stunt co-ordinator Martin Grace (as Bond) on top of the train. They had a helicopter for two days and, with
time running out, the train went onto an area of track Grace hadn’t checked
beforehand. Hanging off the side of a
carriage, he hit a concrete stanchion which caused serious injuries, breaking
his hip and leg and hospitalising him for several months. Although he made a full recovery, the
accident cast a cloud over the production, though he was apparently a very
popular patient, as Roger Moore was a frequent visitor to his bedside.
The villainous trio - Louis Jourdan, Maud Adams, Steven Berkoff, on location at Nene Valley
The first unit moved to India and filming began at Udaipur
on 21st September, lasting for three weeks.
Permission to shoot in the region was granted by the reigning Royal
Maharana Bagwat Singh, who frequently entertained the cast and crew at dinners
during production. At one such cocktail
party, John Glen saw a stuffed tiger in the palace and asked if the production
could borrow it. Mounted onto a
wheel-barrow, this is the tiger that springs out of the bushes at Bond (and it
was Moore who suggested the “sit!” line).
The elephant hunt, lifted from The Most Dangerous Game according to
Michael G. Wilson, was filmed in the Maharani’s vast garden, which had become
overgrown.
The first sequence filmed was the meeting of Bond and Vijay
where the ‘fourth wall’ is broken - MI6’s man in India plays the James Bond theme on
his recorder as Bond disembarks from the boat.
Amritraj, playing a snake charmer was, in real life, terrified of them
and his line, “This is the wrong cover, I hate snakes” was written especially
for him.
In Q's lab - Vijay Amritraj, Roger Moore, Desmond Llewellyn
The Monsoon Palace served as the exterior of Khan’s palace
(the interiors were built at Pinewood), Octopussy’s home base was filmed at the
Lake Palace and Bond’s hotel, the Shiv Niwas Palace, also housed key cast and
crew members.
Remy Julienne, who devised the Citroen chase in For Your
Eyes Only, supervised the Tuk Tuk sequence and the “company taxi” was modified
by the production, “adding bigger engines and beefing up the brakes” - it was
capable of achieving 70mph. Filming the
sequence was difficult, due to the huge crowds that turned up to watch filming
(according to Glen they one day asked for 5,000 extras and 10,000 people turned
up) and Kabir Bedi said it was impossible to predict what would happen. This is highlighted by the shot when a
cyclist passes between the Tuk Tuk’s during the sword fight. It wasn’t a stunt, but a bystander who hadn’t
realised filming was going on. Since he
wasn’t injured and the shot was caught by two cameras, the scene was left in
the film.
Udaipur itself was a sweltering location and difficult to film in. With temperatures ranging between 48 and 65
degrees celsius, Moore
needed a new shirt and suit-jacket for almost every take to ensure Bond looked
cool and collected at all times. Most of
the crew suffered stomach upsets while on location and the first unit was
reportedly very happy to return to the UK.
Production began at Pinewood in mid-October and ran through
to January 1983. Kamal Khan’s palace
took up the entirety of Stage B, the Indian street was built on Stage C and the
courtyard of the MonsoonPalace was built on the
007 stage. The circus bigtop was also
filmed at Pinewood, over three days, with a crowd made up of local school
children and their families. Octopussy’s
team was filled with professional dancers, acrobats and members of the British
Gymnastics team with Suzanne Dando acting as supervisor. The fight scenes between Bond and Gobinda,
using Roger Moore and Kabir Bedi, were also filmed and the last sequences shot
were miniatures, including Q’s balloon advancing on the Monsoon Palace.
Louis Jourdan and Kabir Bedi with the buzz-saw
John Barry composed the soundtrack and the theme
song, All Time High, with lyrics by Tim Rice and sung by Rita Coolidge, was the first Bond theme not to feature the
title of the movie in the lyrics (the second was Casino Royale (2006)).
Octopussy opened with a Royal Premiere attended by Prince
Charles and Princess Diana at the Odeon, Leicester Square on 6 June 1983,
moving to the rest of the UK the next day.
Within five months of its premiere, it had been released in 16 countries
worldwide.
from left - Kabir Bedi, Maud Adams, Cubby Broccoli, Roger Moore, Lois Maxwell, Vijay Amritraj, Desmond Llewellyn
Critical reaction was mixed, with some reviewers especially
disliking the clown costume (Roger Moore apparently wasn’t a fan of it either),
the gorilla outfit and the Tarzan yell (which I whole-heartedly agree with,
it’s terrible). On the other hand,
Moore, Louis Jourdan and Steven Berkoff were all praised, as was the idea of
going “back-to-basics, [with] less gadgets [and] more hand-to-hand combat”.
Corgi Toys produced a set centred around the Acrostar jet
and its attendant Range Rover and horsebox.
I wasn’t aware of them at the time and they’re now so expensive on the
collectors market, I’ll probably never own one.
Marvel published a special annual, featuring an adaption of the film
(written by Steve Moore, with art by Paul Neary) and a behind the scenes essay
by Richard Hollis.
Octopussy is the last Bond film to reveal the title of the
next one during the end credits (in this case, “From A View To Kill” - the
“From” was later dropped).
The film was nominated for an Academy of Science Fiction,
Fantasy & Horror Films Award, won the Golden Screen Award in Germany and also
the Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing.
Maud Adams was nominated for the Best Fantasy Supporting Actress Saturn
Award and Entertainment Weekly later ranked her as the best Bond girl of the
Roger Moore James Bond films.
On its $27.5m budget it has, to date, grossed over $187.5m
(taking $67.8m in the US alone) and comfortably beat Never Say Never Again
(which took $160m on a higher budget) in the so-called Battle Of The Bonds.
“There was no animosity between Sean and me,” Roger
Moore wrote in his memoir, My Word Is My Bond.
“We didn’t react to the press speculation that we had become competitors
in the part. In fact we often had dinner
together and compared notes about how much we’d each shot and how our
respective producers were trying to kill us with all the action scenes they
expected us to do.”
He also wrote “Octopussy was a joy to film. The cast were wonderful, as were the
crew. It was a fitting farewell to my
tenure, in my mind I was preparing to bid farewell to Bond.”
