Octopussy
40th Anniversary
(1983–2023)

After his initial three-film contract had expired after The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Roger Moore then signed on to play James Bond on a film-by-film basis, although at the time Octopussy was being developed he had not agreed to return, and the producers were testing other potential actors for the starring role. In early June 1982 British actors Oliver Tobias and Michael Billington took part in screen tests at Pinewood Studios, and on June 22nd and 23rd American actor James Brolin was also tested. Playing opposite him as Tatiana Romanova in the obligatory From Russia With Love Venice hotel bedroom scene, was Maud Adams – who had played the ill-fated Andrea Anders in The Man With The Golden Gun opposite Roger Moore and Christopher Lee in 1974. Although Brolin’s test was received positively by the filmmakers, producer ‘Cubby’ Broccoli still felt that Bond should be played by a British actor, he ultimately struck a deal with Roger Moore in mid-July 1982 to return to the role of Bond for what the actor believed would be the final time. Joining him on Octopussy would be Maud Adams in the title role following her test with James Brolin.

For the role of the now villainous Kamal Khan, French-born former Hollywood heartthrob Louis Jourdan was cast as the exiled Afghan Prince, after originally being considered for the role of Sir Hugo Drax in Moonraker (1979). Larger-than-life theatre actor, author and playwright Steven Berkoff was cast in the key role of General Orlov, with international tennis star Vijay Amritraj playing Bond’s MI6 contact in India. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli was a huge tennis fan, and having seen Amritraj play at Wimbledon had him screen tested alongside James Brolin at Pinewood Studios in June 1982. Swedish actress Kristina Wayborn signed on to play Octopussy’s second-in-command Magda, with established Indian actor Kabir Bedi playing Kamal Khan’s bodyguard Gobinda. Other small roles in the film were filled by Douglas Wilmer as antiques expert Jim Fanning, and Sri-Lankan born actor Albert Moses as Sadruddin –the head of the MI6 station in India, having previously played a waiter in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Making his debut as M was Robert Brown, who was joined by Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn, Geoffrey Keen and Walter Gotell – all reprising their respective roles in the series. Also reprising his role as Smithers, an MI6 operative and assistant to Q, was Jeremy Bulloch. Returning to play General Gogol's assistant Rublevitch for a third time, was Austrian-born actress and Miss World 1969, Eva Rueber-Staier.

Filming began on June 6, 1982 in Utah with the aerial unit capturing the footage of Bond and Gobinda fighting on the exterior of Kamal Khan’s twin-engined plane as he escapes at the climax of the film. Returning to the series were American stuntmen Jake Lombard and B.J. Worth, who doubled for Roger Moore (although still not confirmed as playing James Bond) and Kabir Bedi. The team had previously performed the aerial stunt work seen in the pre-credit sequence of Moonraker (1979), overseen by second unit director John Glen. Failing to capture footage of a remote-controlled plane crashing and exploding, the sequence was later completed with a scale model at Pinewood Studios by special effects supervisor John Richardson. Principal photography began on Monday August 9th with Roger Moore and Robert Brown filming scenes at the famous Checkpoint Charlie in West Berlin. The start of filming on Octopussy was announced in trade magazines with a double-page advertisement showing a still of Roger Moore in his iconic firing stance from For Your Eyes Only (1981). The first unit returned briefly to Pinewood Studios in mid-August to film the scenes in M’s office and Sotheby’s auction. Also filmed were the scenes with Miss Moneypenny and her new assistant Penelope Smallbone played by Michaela Clavell; daughter of the best-selling novelist, screenwriter, and film director James Clavell (1921-1994). The filmmakers considered making Miss Smallbone a recurring character who would take over when Lois Maxwell left her role, but this idea was never followed up, and Moneypenny was simply recast as new actors took on the role of James Bond.

In late August the first and second units travelled to the RAF base at Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire to capture the scenes for the film’s climax in Octopussy’s Big Top Circus tent. The RAF base was doubling for the West German Army base specified in the script. After three days filming the production then moved to RAF Northolt in Ruislip, Middlesex to gather the material required for the spectacular pre-credit sequence. Once again the British RAF base was doubling for a South American location as Bond goes in disguise as an Army General. Despite the addition of palm trees and extras in skimpy outfits, the finished result still looks like a cold UK location. In the first week of September 1982, the climax of the sequence involving Bond’s escape from a heat-seeking missile was filmed with a full-size version of 007’s Acrostar Jet mounted on a Jaguar car driven by special effects maestro John Richardson. Originally intended to be used in Moonraker (1979), the Bede Jet was supposed to have been flown through a hangar at the airbase by pilot John W. ‘Corkey’ Fornof; but in the finished film this was achieved with a combination of foreground miniatures, the full-scale Jaguar-mounted version, and a scale model of the exploding hangar that was destroyed back at Pinewood Studios on January 13, 1983.

With the announcement that a rival Bond production had started filming in the South of France in late September 1982, the Octopussy unit then moved to India for the bulk of the location filming. The unit encountered numerous crowd control problems in Udaipur, when onlookers simply walked into shot as stunt-driving supervisor Remy Julienne and his team were trying to safely capture the shots required for the taxi-chase sequence. Whilst the first unit progressed in India, the second unit supervised by Arthur Wooster was back in the UK shooting the train sequences on the Nene Valley Railway near Peterborough. Two weeks after beginning work at the location, experienced stuntman, and Roger Moore double Martin Grace (1942-2010) was involved in a serious accident on September 28, 1982 which almost cost him his life. The sequence where Bond climbs outside the moving train to move to the next carriage had been carefully inspected ahead of the filming, but the train continued beyond the designated safe stopping point and Martin Grace hit a concrete post at the side of the track, and although seriously injured clung onto the train until he could be transported to hospital where it was discovered he had broken his pelvis and thigh bones. Whilst recovering in Peterborough hospital he was visited on several occasions by Roger Moore, following his return from India.

Whilst in India, the first unit also captured the tiger hunt sequence, inspired in part by the 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game by American author Richard Connell (filmed under the same title in 1932 by King Kong director Ernest B. Schoedsack – with Irving Pichel). The climax of the sequence saw James Bond (Roger Moore) escape his pursuers, after encountering every jungle-based cliché ever filmed, before being rescued by a group of American tourists on a river trip which gave co-producer Michael G. Wilson (and his wife Jane) the opportunity to make his cameo appearance in the film. The sequence is indicative of the way the James Bond films were then moving; a relatively serious sequence is marred by the inclusion of juvenile jokes and Tarzan calls, and highlights the fact that the filmmakers didn’t know in which direction they wanted the storyline to develop. The contemporary Cold-War backstory is played more or less straight; whereas other sequences are littered with ‘in-jokes’ – from Vijay Amritraj playing ‘The James Bond Theme’ as he charms a snake by way of introduction, to a laughable climax involving Q (Desmond Llewelyn) in a hot-air balloon as he attempts to rescue 007. For much of its running time Octopussy (1983) is a film at odds with itself.

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