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Moonraker (film)
Encyclopedia
Moonraker is the eleventh spy film
in the James Bond
series
, and the fourth to star Roger Moore
as the fictional
MI6
agent James Bond
. The third and final film in the series to be directed by Lewis Gilbert
, it co-stars Lois Chiles
, Michael Lonsdale
, Corinne Clery
, and Richard Kiel
. Bond investigates the theft of a space shuttle
, leading him to Hugo Drax
, the owner of the shuttle's manufacturing firm. Along with space scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead
, Bond follows the trail from California to Venice
, Rio de Janeiro
, and the Amazon rain forest, and finally into outer space
to prevent a plot to wipe out the world population and to re-create humanity with a master race
.
Moonraker was intended by its creator Ian Fleming
to become a film even before he completed the novel in 1954, since he based it on a manuscript he had written even earlier. The film producers had originally intended to do Moonraker in 1973 with Roger Moore making his debut as Bond, but it was put on hold and not released until 1979, coinciding with the rise of the science fiction
genre in the wake of the Star Wars
phenomenon. Budgetary issues caused the film to be primarily shot in France
, with locations also in Italy, Brazil, Guatemala
and the United States. The soundstages of Pinewood Studios
in England, a traditional location for the series, were only used by the special effects team.
Moonraker was noted for its high production cost, spending almost twice as much money as predecessor The Spy Who Loved Me
, but eventually became the highest grossing film of the series with $210,308,099 worldwide, a record that stood until 1995's GoldenEye
. The film's visuals were praised, with Derek Meddings
being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, but reviewers were mostly critical of the writing and comedic tone.
operative, James Bond, agent 007, is recalled from Africa to investigate. En route in a small plane, on an unrelated case, Bond is attacked by the pilot and crew and is pushed out of the plane by the mercenary assassin Jaws. Bond survives by stealing a parachute from the pilot, whilst Jaws lands on a circus tent.
Bond proceeds to the Drax Industries shuttle-manufacturing complex where he meets the owner of the company, Hugo Drax
, and henchman Chang. Bond also meets an astronaut, Dr. Holly Goodhead
and survives an assassination attempt via a centrifuge chamber
. Bond is later aided by Drax's personal pilot, Corinne Dufour
, as he finds blueprints for a glass vial made in Venice
. Bond then foils another attempt on his life, shooting a sniper with a hunting shotgun. Upon discovering that Dufour assisted Bond's investigations, Drax kills her.
Bond again encounters Goodhead in Venice. He is chased through the canals by Drax's henchmen but escapes. Bond discovers a secret biological laboratory; by accidentally poisoning the scientists there, he learns that the glass vials are to hold a deadly nerve gas. Chang attacks Bond and is killed. During the fight, Bond sees evidence that Drax is moving his operation to Rio de Janeiro
. Rejoining Goodhead, he deduces that she is a CIA
agent spying on Drax. They promise to work together, but quickly dispense with the truce. Bond has saved one of the vials he found earlier, as the only evidence of the now-empty laboratory, giving it to M for analysis, who permits him to go to Rio de Janeiro.
In Rio, Bond meets his Brazilian contact Manuela. Drax hires Jaws to finish Chang's job of eliminating Bond. Bond meets Goodhead at the top of Sugarloaf Mountain
, where they are attacked by Jaws on a cable car. After Jaws' car crashes he is rescued by Dolly from the rubble, and the two fall in love. Bond and Goodhead are captured by henchmen, but Bond escapes and reports to an MI6 base in Brazil and learns that the toxin comes from a rare orchid indigenous to the Amazon jungle, which is deadly to humans but harmless to other life. Bond travels the Amazon River
looking for Drax's research facility and again encounters Jaws and other henchmen. Bond escapes from his boat just before it hits the Iguacu Falls, and finds Drax's base. Captured by Jaws again, Bond is taken to Drax and witnesses four Moonrakers lifting off. Drax explains that he stole the Moonraker because another in the fleet had developed a fault during assembly. Bond is reunited with Goodhead; they escape and successfully pose as pilots on the sixth shuttle. The shuttles dock with Drax's hidden
space station.
Drax plans to destroy human life by launching fifty globes containing the toxin into the Earth's atmosphere. Before launching them, Drax also transported several dozen genetically perfect young men and women of varying races, to the space station. They would live there until Earth was safe again for human life; their descendants would be the seed for a "new master race". Bond persuades Jaws and Dolly to switch allegiance by getting Drax to admit that anyone not measuring up to his physical standards would be exterminated and Jaws attacks Drax' guards.
Bond and Goodhead disable the radar jammer
hiding the station from Earth. The US sends a platoon of Marines
in a military shuttle. A laser battle ensues in which Drax's guards as well as his new master race die. During the battle, Bond shoots Drax with a cyanide-tipped dart, then pushes him into an airlock and ejects him into space
.
The space station, heavily damaged in the battle, disintegrates. Jaws helps Bond and Goodhead escape in Drax's space shuttle. They too escape the space station as their module breaks away before the station explodes. Before the battle Drax launched three of the globes towards Earth, which Goodhead and Bond destroy from their shuttle.
, said, "James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only
"; however, the producers chose the novel Moonraker as the basis for the next film, following the box office success of the 1977 space-themed film Star Wars
. For Your Eyes Only was subsequently delayed and ended up following Moonraker in 1981.
had originally intended the novel, published in 1954, to be made into a film even before he began writing it and was based on an original manuscript of a screenplay which had been on his mind for years. In 1955, the film rights to Moonraker were initially sold to John Payne of the Rank Organisation
for £10,000 (£ present value), paying a $1000 a month option for nine months. Payne was the first person interested in making the novels into a film series, but later rejected the idea based on the fact it wouldn't be possible for him to obtain the rights to the entire 007 series. In spring 1959, due to on-going difficulties, Fleming eventually bought back the rights for his novels, shortly before selling them to Harry Saltzman
.
However, as with several previous Bond films, the story from Fleming's novel is almost entirely dispensed with, and little more than the name of Hugo Drax was used in film, in favour of a film more in keeping with the era of science fiction
. The 2002 Bond film Die Another Day
makes further use of some ideas and character names from the novel. Tom Mankiewicz
had written a full screenplay of Moonraker that was eventually partly discarded. According to Mankiewicz footage shot at Drax's lairs was considerably more detailed than the edited result in the final version. The crew had shot a scene with Drax meeting his co-financiers in his jungle lair and they used the same chamber room below the space shuttle launch pad that Bond and Goodhead eventually escape from. This scene was shot but later cut out. Another scene involving Bond and Goodhead in a meditation room aboard Drax's space station, was shot but never used in the final film. However, press stills were released of the scene which featured on Topps trading cards in 1979 as was a theatrical trailer which featured Bond punching Jaws in the face aboard the space station, neither of which featured in the complete film. Some scenes from Mankiewicz's script were later used in subsequent films, including the Acrostar Jet sequence used in the pre-credit sequence for Octopussy
, and the Eiffel Tower
scene in A View to a Kill
.
In March 2004, an Internet hoax stated rumours about a lost 1956 version of Moonraker by Orson Welles
, and a James Bond web site repeated it on April Fool's Day in 2004 as a hoax. Supposedly, this recently discovered lost film was 40 minutes of raw footage with Dirk Bogarde
as Bond, Welles as Drax, and Peter Lorre
as Drax's henchman. A film poster was created displaying the actors and the title of the film.
and Glidrose Publications authorised the film's screenwriter
, Christopher Wood
to write his second novelisation based upon the film. It was named James Bond and Moonraker to avoid confusion with Fleming's original novel Moonraker. It was released in 1979
, after the film's release.
. However, well-established French actor Michael Lonsdale
was cast as Drax, partly due to his fluency in English, and Corinne Clery
for the part of Corinne Dufour
, given that the film was produced in France. American actress Lois Chiles
had originally been offered the role of Anya Amasova
in The Spy Who Loved Me
(1977), but had turned down the part when she decided to take temporary retirement. Chiles was cast as Holly Goodhead by chance, when she was given the seat next to Lewis Gilbert
on a flight and he believed she would be ideal for the role as the CIA scientist.
Drax's henchman Chang, played by Japanese aikido
instructor Toshiro Suga
, was recommended for the role by executive producer Michael G. Wilson
, who was one of his pupils. In Moonraker, Wilson also continued a tradition in the Bond films he started in the film Goldfinger
where he has a small cameo role. He appears twice in the film, first as a tourist outside the Venini Glass shop and museum in Venice, then at the end of the film as a technician in Drax's control room.
The Jaws character, played by Richard Kiel
makes a return, although in Moonraker the role is played more for comedic effect than in The Spy Who Loved Me. Jaws was intended to be a villain against Bond to the bitter end, but director Lewis Gilbert stated on the DVD documentary that he received so much fan mail from small children saying "Why can't Jaws be a goodie not a baddie", that as a result he was persuaded to make Jaws gradually become Bond's ally at the end of the film.
Diminutive French actress Blanche Ravalec
, who had recently begun her career with minor roles in French films such as Michel Lang
's Holiday Hotel
(1978) and Claude Sautet
's Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
nominee, A Simple Story
(1978), was cast as the bespectacled Dolly, the girlfriend of Jaws. Originally, the producers were dubious about whether the audience would accept the height difference between them, and only made their decision once they were informed by Richard Kiel that his real-life wife was of the same height. Lois Maxwell
's 22 year old daughter, Melinda Maxwell, was also cast as one of the "perfect" human specimens from Drax's master race.
at the Pinewood Studios
to France, due to high taxation in England at the time. Only the cable car interiors and space battle exteriors were filmed at Pinewood. The massive sets designed by Ken Adam
were the largest ever constructed in France and required more than 222,000 man-hours to construct (roughly 1000 hours by each of the crew on average). They were shot at three of France's largest film studios in Épinay
and Boulogne-Billancourt
.
220 technicians used 100 tonnes of metal, two tonnes of nails and 10,000 feet of wood to build the three-story space station set at Eponay Studios. The elaborate space set for Moonraker holds the world record for having the largest number of zero gravity wires in one scene. The Venetian glass museum and fight between Bond and Chang was shot at Boulogne Studios in a building which had once been a World War II
Luftwaffe
aircraft factory during Germany's occupation of France. The scene in the Venice glass museum and warehouse holds the record for the largest amount of break-away sugar glass
used in a single scene.
Drax's mansion, set in California, was actually filmed at the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte
, about 55 kilometres (34.2 mi) southeast of Paris, for the exteriors and Grand Salon. The remaining interiors, including some of the scenes with Corinne Defour and the drawing room, were filmed at the Château de Guermantes
.
Much of the film was shot in the cities of London
, Paris
, Venice
, Palmdale, Calif., and Rio de Janeiro
. The production team had considered India
and Nepal
as a location in the film but on arriving at those places to investigate, they found that it was inconceivable to write them into the script, particularly with time restrictions to do so. They decided on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
, relatively early on, a city that Cubby Broccoli had visited on vacation, and a team was sent to that city in early 1978 to capture initial footage from the Carnaval
festival, which featured in the film.
At the Rio de Janeiro location, many months later, Roger Moore arrived several days later than scheduled for shooting due to recurrent health problems and an attack of kidney stones that he had suffered while in France. After arriving in Rio de Janeiro, Moore was immediately whisked off the plane and went straight to hair and make-up work, before re-boarding the plane, to film the sequence with him arriving as James Bond in the film. Sugarloaf Mountain
was a prominent location in the film, and during filming of the cable car sequence in which Bond and Goodhead are attacked by Jaws during mid-air transportation high above Rio de Janeiro, the stuntman Richard Graydon slipped and narrowly avoided falling to his death. For the scene in which Jaws bites into the steel tramway cable with his teeth, the cable was actually made of liquorice, although Richard Kiel was still required to use his steel dentures.
Iguazu Falls
was a natural location depicted in the film, although as stated by "Q" in the film, the falls were intended to be located somewhere in the upper basin of the Amazon River
rather than where the falls are actually located in the south of Brazil. The second unit had originally planned on sending an actual boat over the falls. However on attempting to release it, the boat became firmly embedded on rocks near the edge. Despite a dangerous attempt by helicopter and rope ladder to retrieve it, the plan had to be abandoned, forcing the second unit to use a miniature at Pinewood instead. The exterior of Drax's pyramid headquarters in the Amazon rain forest near the falls was actually filmed at the Tikal
Mayan ruins in Guatemala
. The interior of the pyramid, however, was designed by Ken Adam at a French studio, in which he purposefully used a shiny coating to make the walls look plastic and false. All of the space centre scenes were shot at the Vehicle Assembly Building of the Kennedy Space Center
, Florida
, although some of the earlier scenes of the Moonraker assembly plant had been filmed on location at the Rockwell International
manufacturing plant in Palmdale, California.
The early scene involving Bond and Jaws in which Bond is pushed out of the aircraft without a parachute
took weeks of planning and preparation. The skydiving sequence was coordinated by Don Calvedt under the supervision of second unit director John Glen. As Calvedt and skydiving champion B.J. Worth developed the equipment for the scene, which included a 1 inches (25.4 mm) parachute pack that could be concealed beneath the suit to give the impression of the missing parachute, and an equipment to prevent the freefalling cameraman from suffering whiplash
while opening his parachute, they brought in stuntman Jake Lombard to test it all. Lombard eventually played Bond in the scene, with Worth as the pilot from which Bond takes a parachute, and Ron Luginbill as Jaws. Both Lombard and Worth would become regular member of the stunt team for aerial sequences in later Bond films. When the stunt men opened their parachutes at the end of every shoot, custom-sewn velcro
costume seams would separate to allow the hidden parachutes to open. The skydiver cinematographer used a lightweight Panavision
camera, bought from an old pawn shop in Paris, which he had adapted, and attached to his helmet to shoot the entire sequence. The scene took a total of 88 skydives by the stuntmen to be completed. The only scenes shot in studio were close-ups of Roger Moore and Richard Kiel.
Since NASA
's Space Shuttle program
had not been launched, Derek Meddings
and his miniatures team had to create the rocket launch footage without any reference. Shuttle models attached to bottle rocket
s and signal flare
s were used for takeoff, and the smoke trail was created with salt that fell from the models. The space scenes were done by rewinding the camera after an element was shot, enabling other elements to be superimposed
in the film stock, with the space battle needing up to forty rewinds to incorporate everything.
For the scene involving the opening of the musical electronic laboratory door lock in Venice, producer Albert R. Broccoli requested special permission from director Steven Spielberg
to use the five-note melody from his film Close Encounters of the Third Kind
(1977). In 1985, Broccoli would return the favour by fulfilling Spielberg's request to use the James Bond theme music for a scene in his film, The Goonies
(1985).
(following Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever). Kate Bush
and Frank Sinatra
were both considered for the vocals, before Johnny Mathis
was approached and offered the opportunity. However Mathis, despite having started recording with Barry, was unable to complete the project, leaving producers to offer the song to Ms. Bassey just weeks before the premiere date in England. Bassey made the recordings with very short notice and as a result, she never regarded the song 'as her own' as she had never had the chance to perform it in full or promote it first. The film uses two versions of the title theme song, a ballad version heard over the main titles, and a disco version over the closing titles. Confusingly, the United Artists
single release labelled the tracks on the 7" single as "Moonraker (Main Title)" for the version used to close the film and "Moonraker (End Title)" for the track that opened the film. The song made little impact on the charts, reaching 159, partly attributed to Bassey's failure to promote the single, given the last-minute decision to quickly record it to meet the schedule.
The soundtrack of Moonraker was composed by John Barry
and recorded in Paris, again, as with production, marking a turning point away from the English location at CTS Studios in London. The score also marked a turning point in John Barry's output, abandoning the Kentonesque brass of his earlier Bond scores and instead scoring the film with slow, rich string passages - a trend which Barry would continue in the 1980s with scores such as Out of Africa and Somewhere in Time
. For Moonraker, Barry uses for the first time since Diamonds Are Forever
(1971) a piece of music called 007 (on track 7), the secondary Bond theme composed by Barry which was introduced in From Russia with Love
during Bond's escape with the Lektor. Barry also made use of classical music
passages in the film. For the scene where Bond visits Drax in his chateau, Drax plays Frédéric Chopin
's Prelude no. 15 in D-flat major (op. 28), "Raindrop" on his grand piano (although he plays in the key of D major). Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka
by Johann Strauss II
was featured during the hovercraft scene on the Piazza San Marco
in Venice, and Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet Overture
" was used for the scenes in Brazil in which Jaws meets Dolly following his accident. Other passages pay homage to earlier films including Richard Strauss
's Also Sprach Zarathustra (op. 30), associated with 2001: A Space Odyssey
) with the hunting horn playing its distinctive first three notes, Elmer Bernstein
's theme from The Magnificent Seven
when Bond appears on horseback in gaucho
clothing at MI6 headquarters in Brazil, and the alien-contacting theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind
as the key-code for a security door as mentioned previously.
The Italian aria
"Vesti la giubba
" from the Ruggero Leoncavallo
's opera "I Pagliacci", was sung in Venice, before one of the henchmen falls to his death from a building, landing and ruining a piano, resulting in Bond to quip the often mis-quoted line from the film "Casablanca", "Play it Again, Sam". Finally in 2005, Bassey sang the song for the first time outside James Bond on stage as part of a medley of her three Bond title songs. An instrumental strings version of the title theme was used in 2007 tourism commercials for the Dominican Republic
.
, grossing $70,308,099 in the UK. Three days after the UK release, it went on general release in the US, openin in 788 cinemas. On the mainland of Europe, the most common month of release was in August 1979, opening in the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden between 13 August and 18 August. Moonraker was released in Kenya
on 27 August. Given that the film was produced largely in France, and it involved some notable French actors, the French premiere for the film was relatively late, released in that country on 10 October 1979. Moonraker grossed a worldwide total of $210,308,099.
, and reviewers such as James Berardinelli
praised the visual effects and stunts. However, critics often consider Moonraker as one of the lesser films in the series, largely due to the extent of the plot which takes James Bond into space, some of ploys used in the film for comedic effect, and its extended dialogue. In November 2006, Entertainment Weekly
ranked Moonraker fourteenth among the Bond films, describing it as "by far the campiest
of all 007 movies" with "one of the worst theme songs"; while IGN
listed it as eleventh, calling it outlandish and saying at despite the actors "trying what they can to ground the film in reality, the laser gun/space station finale pretty much undercuts their efforts"; and Norman Wilner of MSN
chose it as the fourth worst film of the series, considering that the film "just flat-out sucks".
Critic Nicholas Sylvain said of the movie "Moonraker seems to have more than its share of little flaws and annoyances which begin right from the opening pre-credit sequence. The sheer idiocy (and impossibility) of having a fully fueled shuttle on the back of the Boeing during the trans-Atlantic crossing should be evident, and later in the film, the whole Jaws-falls-in-love and becomes a "good guy" routine leaves me rather cold, and provides far too much cheesy comedy moments, as does the gondola driving through the square scene."
In his review of Moonraker in 1979, the Chicago Sun-Times
film critic Roger Ebert
, while clearly expressing his approval of the advanced special effects and Ken Adam's extravagant production sets, criticised the pace in which the locations of the film evolved, remarking that, "it's so jammed with faraway places and science fiction special effects that Bond has to move at a trot just to make it into all the scenes". Christopher Null
of Filmcritic.com said of the film; "Most rational observers agree that Moonraker is without a doubt the most absurd James Bond movie, definitely of the Roger Moore era and possibly of all time".
However, while he criticised the extravagance of the plot and action sequences, he believed that this added to the enjoyment of the film, and particularly approved of the remark "I think he's attempting re-entry!" by "Q" during Bond and Goodhead's orbiting of the Earth which he described as "featuring what might be the best double entendre
ever".
Reviewing Moonraker, film critic Danny Peary
wrote that “The worst James Bond film to date has Roger Moore walking through the paces for his hefty paycheck and giving way to his double for a series of unimaginative action scenes and "humorous" chases. There’s little suspense and the humor falls flat. Not only is Jaws so pacified by love that he becomes a good guy, but the filmmakers also have the gall to set the finale in outer space and stage a battle right out of Star Wars.”
The exaggerated nature of the plot and space station sequence has seen the film parodied on numerous occasions. Of note is the Austin Powers
spoof film
The Spy Who Shagged Me
(1999) which whilst a parody of other James Bond films, pays reference to Moonraker by Dr. Evil
's lair in space. The scene in which Drax is shot by the cyanide dart and ousted into space is parodied by Powers's ejection of Dr. Evil's clone Mini-Me into outer space in the same way.
Spy film
The spy film genre deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy . Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, including works by John Buchan, John Le Carré, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton...
in the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
series
James Bond (film series)
The James Bond film series is a British series of motion pictures based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond , who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming's novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines...
, and the fourth to star Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
as the fictional
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
MI6
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
agent James Bond
James Bond (character)
Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR is a fictional character created by journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the main protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games...
. The third and final film in the series to be directed by Lewis Gilbert
Lewis Gilbert
Lewis Gilbert CBE is an English film director, producer and screenwriter.-Early life:He was the son of music hall performers, and spent his early years travelling with his parents, and watching the shows from the side of the stage. He first performed on-stage at the age of 5, when asked to drive a...
, it co-stars Lois Chiles
Lois Chiles
Lois Cleveland Chiles is an American actress and former fashion model known for her role as Dr. Holly Goodhead in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker.-Early life:...
, Michael Lonsdale
Michael Lonsdale
Michael Lonsdale , sometimes billed as Michel Lonsdale, is a French actor who has appeared in over 180 films and television shows....
, Corinne Clery
Corinne Clery
Corinne Cléry, also known as Corinne Piccolo is a French actress.-Biography and filmography:Born near Paris, and raised in Saint Germain-en-Laye, Cléry started her acting career in the late 1960s under the name 'Corinne Piccoli'...
, and Richard Kiel
Richard Kiel
Richard Dawson Kiel is an American actor best known for his role as the steel-toothed Jaws in the James Bond movies The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker as well as the video game Everything or Nothing, and Mr. Larson in Happy Gilmore...
. Bond investigates the theft of a space shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
, leading him to Hugo Drax
Hugo Drax
Sir Hugo Drax is a fictional character created by author Ian Fleming for the James Bond novel Moonraker. Fleming named him after his friend, Sir Reginald Drax. For the later film and its novelization, Drax was largely transformed by screenwriter Christopher Wood. In the film, Drax is portrayed by...
, the owner of the shuttle's manufacturing firm. Along with space scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead
Holly Goodhead
Dr. Holly Goodhead is a fictional character from the James Bond franchise, portrayed by Lois Chiles. She does not appear in any of the novels, solely appearing in the film version of Moonraker. However, her character is somewhat similar to Gala Brand, who is the female lead character in the...
, Bond follows the trail from California to Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, and the Amazon rain forest, and finally into outer space
Outer space
Outer space is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including the Earth. It is not completely empty, but consists of a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles: predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and neutrinos....
to prevent a plot to wipe out the world population and to re-create humanity with a master race
Master race
Master race was a phrase and concept originating in the slave-holding Southern US. The later phrase Herrenvolk , interpreted as 'master race', was a concept in Nazi ideology in which the Nordic peoples, one of the branches of what in the late-19th and early-20th century was called the Aryan race,...
.
Moonraker was intended by its creator Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
to become a film even before he completed the novel in 1954, since he based it on a manuscript he had written even earlier. The film producers had originally intended to do Moonraker in 1973 with Roger Moore making his debut as Bond, but it was put on hold and not released until 1979, coinciding with the rise of the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
genre in the wake of the Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
phenomenon. Budgetary issues caused the film to be primarily shot in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, with locations also in Italy, Brazil, Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
and the United States. The soundstages of Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...
in England, a traditional location for the series, were only used by the special effects team.
Moonraker was noted for its high production cost, spending almost twice as much money as predecessor The Spy Who Loved Me
The Spy Who Loved Me (film)
The Spy Who Loved Me is a spy film, the tenth film in the James Bond series, and the third to star Roger Moore as the fictional secret agent James Bond. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert and the screenplay was written by Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum...
, but eventually became the highest grossing film of the series with $210,308,099 worldwide, a record that stood until 1995's GoldenEye
GoldenEye
GoldenEye is the seventeenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film was directed by Martin Campbell and is the first film in the series not to take story elements from the works of novelist Ian Fleming...
. The film's visuals were praised, with Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings was a British television and cinema special effects expert, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" television puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s James Bond films and the Superman film series.-Early years:Both Meddings' parents had...
being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, but reviewers were mostly critical of the writing and comedic tone.
Plot
A Drax Industries Moonraker space shuttle on loan to the United Kingdom is hijacked in mid-air and MI6Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
operative, James Bond, agent 007, is recalled from Africa to investigate. En route in a small plane, on an unrelated case, Bond is attacked by the pilot and crew and is pushed out of the plane by the mercenary assassin Jaws. Bond survives by stealing a parachute from the pilot, whilst Jaws lands on a circus tent.
Bond proceeds to the Drax Industries shuttle-manufacturing complex where he meets the owner of the company, Hugo Drax
Hugo Drax
Sir Hugo Drax is a fictional character created by author Ian Fleming for the James Bond novel Moonraker. Fleming named him after his friend, Sir Reginald Drax. For the later film and its novelization, Drax was largely transformed by screenwriter Christopher Wood. In the film, Drax is portrayed by...
, and henchman Chang. Bond also meets an astronaut, Dr. Holly Goodhead
Holly Goodhead
Dr. Holly Goodhead is a fictional character from the James Bond franchise, portrayed by Lois Chiles. She does not appear in any of the novels, solely appearing in the film version of Moonraker. However, her character is somewhat similar to Gala Brand, who is the female lead character in the...
and survives an assassination attempt via a centrifuge chamber
High-G training
High-G training is done by aviators and astronauts who are subject to high levels of acceleration . It is designed to prevent a g-induced Loss Of Consciousness , a situation when g-forces move the blood away from the brain to the extent that consciousness is lost.Incidents of acceleration-induced...
. Bond is later aided by Drax's personal pilot, Corinne Dufour
Corinne Dufour
Corinne Dufour is a fictional character in the James Bond film Moonraker.Corinne Dufour is Sir Hugo Drax's personal pilot and assistant. She first appears when Bond arrives in Los Angeles to investigate Drax: she pilots the helicopter that collects Bond from Los Angeles International airport,...
, as he finds blueprints for a glass vial made in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
. Bond then foils another attempt on his life, shooting a sniper with a hunting shotgun. Upon discovering that Dufour assisted Bond's investigations, Drax kills her.
Bond again encounters Goodhead in Venice. He is chased through the canals by Drax's henchmen but escapes. Bond discovers a secret biological laboratory; by accidentally poisoning the scientists there, he learns that the glass vials are to hold a deadly nerve gas. Chang attacks Bond and is killed. During the fight, Bond sees evidence that Drax is moving his operation to Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
. Rejoining Goodhead, he deduces that she is a CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
agent spying on Drax. They promise to work together, but quickly dispense with the truce. Bond has saved one of the vials he found earlier, as the only evidence of the now-empty laboratory, giving it to M for analysis, who permits him to go to Rio de Janeiro.
In Rio, Bond meets his Brazilian contact Manuela. Drax hires Jaws to finish Chang's job of eliminating Bond. Bond meets Goodhead at the top of Sugarloaf Mountain
Sugarloaf Mountain, Brazil
Sugarloaf Mountain , is a peak situated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean...
, where they are attacked by Jaws on a cable car. After Jaws' car crashes he is rescued by Dolly from the rubble, and the two fall in love. Bond and Goodhead are captured by henchmen, but Bond escapes and reports to an MI6 base in Brazil and learns that the toxin comes from a rare orchid indigenous to the Amazon jungle, which is deadly to humans but harmless to other life. Bond travels the Amazon River
Amazon River
The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...
looking for Drax's research facility and again encounters Jaws and other henchmen. Bond escapes from his boat just before it hits the Iguacu Falls, and finds Drax's base. Captured by Jaws again, Bond is taken to Drax and witnesses four Moonrakers lifting off. Drax explains that he stole the Moonraker because another in the fleet had developed a fault during assembly. Bond is reunited with Goodhead; they escape and successfully pose as pilots on the sixth shuttle. The shuttles dock with Drax's hidden
Stealth technology
Stealth technology also termed LO technology is a sub-discipline of military tactics and passive electronic countermeasures, which cover a range of techniques used with personnel, aircraft, ships, submarines, and missiles, to make them less visible to radar, infrared, sonar and other detection...
space station.
Bond and Goodhead disable the radar jammer
Radar jamming and deception
Radar jamming and deception is the intentional emission of radio frequency signals to interfere with the operation of a radar by saturating its receiver with noise or false information...
hiding the station from Earth. The US sends a platoon of Marines
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
in a military shuttle. A laser battle ensues in which Drax's guards as well as his new master race die. During the battle, Bond shoots Drax with a cyanide-tipped dart, then pushes him into an airlock and ejects him into space
Space exposure
Space exposure is the subjection of a human to the conditions of outer space, without protective clothing and beyond the Earth’s atmosphere in a vacuum.-Explanation and history:...
.
The space station, heavily damaged in the battle, disintegrates. Jaws helps Bond and Goodhead escape in Drax's space shuttle. They too escape the space station as their module breaks away before the station explodes. Before the battle Drax launched three of the globes towards Earth, which Goodhead and Bond destroy from their shuttle.
Cast
- Roger MooreRoger MooreSir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
as James BondJames Bond (character)Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR is a fictional character created by journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the main protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games...
: An MI6 agent assigned to look into the theft of a shuttle from the "Moonraker" space programme. - Lois ChilesLois ChilesLois Cleveland Chiles is an American actress and former fashion model known for her role as Dr. Holly Goodhead in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker.-Early life:...
as Holly GoodheadHolly GoodheadDr. Holly Goodhead is a fictional character from the James Bond franchise, portrayed by Lois Chiles. She does not appear in any of the novels, solely appearing in the film version of Moonraker. However, her character is somewhat similar to Gala Brand, who is the female lead character in the...
: A CIA agent who joins Bond and flies with him to Drax's space station. - Michael LonsdaleMichael LonsdaleMichael Lonsdale , sometimes billed as Michel Lonsdale, is a French actor who has appeared in over 180 films and television shows....
as Sir Hugo Drax: Main antagonist. An industrialist who plans to poison all humans on earth and establish a civilisation in space. - Toshiro SugaToshiro SugaToshirō Suga is an aikido instructor. He holds the rank of 6th dan Aikikai.Born in Tokyo, his aikido teachers include Morihei Ueshiba and Morihiro Saito. For many years he taught military forces in Canada. He takes part in international seminars.He had a brief career in cinema, thanks in part to...
as Chang: Drax's original bodyguard. - Richard KielRichard KielRichard Dawson Kiel is an American actor best known for his role as the steel-toothed Jaws in the James Bond movies The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker as well as the video game Everything or Nothing, and Mr. Larson in Happy Gilmore...
as Jaws: Drax's replacement bodyguard after Chang is killed, afflicted by giantism and with a set of stainless steel teeth. - Corinne CleryCorinne CleryCorinne Cléry, also known as Corinne Piccolo is a French actress.-Biography and filmography:Born near Paris, and raised in Saint Germain-en-Laye, Cléry started her acting career in the late 1960s under the name 'Corinne Piccoli'...
as Corinne DufourCorinne DufourCorinne Dufour is a fictional character in the James Bond film Moonraker.Corinne Dufour is Sir Hugo Drax's personal pilot and assistant. She first appears when Bond arrives in Los Angeles to investigate Drax: she pilots the helicopter that collects Bond from Los Angeles International airport,...
: Drax's personal pilot. - Bernard LeeBernard LeeJohn Bernard Lee was an English actor, best known for his role as M in the first eleven James Bond films.-Life and career:...
as MM (James Bond)M is a fictional character in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, as well as the films in the Bond franchise. The head of MI6 and Bond's superior, M has been portrayed by three actors in the official Bond film series: Bernard Lee, Robert Brown and since 1995 by Judi Dench. Background =Ian Fleming...
: The head of MI6. This was Bernard Lee's final appearance as M. - Geoffrey KeenGeoffrey KeenGeoffrey Keen was an English actor who appeared in supporting roles in many famous films.-Early life:Keen was born in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England, the son of stage actor Malcolm Keen. He was educated at Bristol Grammar School. He then joined the Little Repertory Theatre in Bristol for whom...
as Frederick Gray: The British Minister of Defence. - Desmond LlewelynDesmond LlewelynDesmond Wilkinson Llewelyn was a Welsh actor, famous for playing Q in 17 of the James Bond films between 1963 and 1999.-Early life:...
as QQ (James Bond)Q is a fictional character in the James Bond novels and films. Q , like M, is a job title rather than a name. He is the head of Q Branch , the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service...
: MI6's "quartermaster" who supplies Bond with multi-purpose vehicles and gadgets useful for the latter's mission. - Lois MaxwellLois MaxwellLois Maxwell was a Canadian actress.Maxwell began her film career in the late 1940s, and won a Golden Globe Award for the New Actress of the Year for her performance in That Hagen Girl...
as Miss MoneypennyMiss MoneypennyJane Moneypenny, better known as Miss Moneypenny, is a fictional character in the James Bond novels and films. She is secretary to M, who is Bond's boss and head of the British Secret Service...
: M's secretary. - Emily BoltonEmily BoltonEmily Bolton is an actress probably best known for her appearance in the James Bond film Moonraker in which she played 007's Brazilian contact Manuela.She is also known for her TV appearances as a recurring cast member in :...
as Manuela: 007's contact in Rio. - Michael MarshallMichael MarshallMichael Marshall may refer to:* Michael Marshall , American R&B singer* Michael Marshall Smith , British writer* Sir Michael Marshall , British politician...
as Colonel Scott: U.S. Space Marines commander. - Walter GotellWalter GotellWalter Gotell was a German actor, known for his role as General Gogol, head of the KGB, in the James Bond film series.Gotell was born in Bonn, Germany; his family emigrated to the United Kingdom after the Nazis came to power...
as General Gogol: The head of the KGBKGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
. - Blanche RavalecBlanche RavalecBlanche Ravalec is a French actress and dubbing artist. To English-speaking audiences, she is chiefly known for her role as Dolly, Jaws' girlfriend in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker. Beyond this, however, she has made over seventy appearances in French-language TV and film...
as Dolly: Jaws' girlfriend.
Production
The end credits for the previous Bond film, The Spy Who Loved MeThe Spy Who Loved Me (film)
The Spy Who Loved Me is a spy film, the tenth film in the James Bond series, and the third to star Roger Moore as the fictional secret agent James Bond. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert and the screenplay was written by Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum...
, said, "James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only
For Your Eyes Only (film)
For Your Eyes Only is the twelfth spy film in the James Bond series and the fifth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It marked the directorial debut of John Glen, who had worked as editor and second unit director in three other Bond films. The screenplay by Richard Maibaum...
"; however, the producers chose the novel Moonraker as the basis for the next film, following the box office success of the 1977 space-themed film Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
. For Your Eyes Only was subsequently delayed and ended up following Moonraker in 1981.
Script
Ian FlemingIan Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
had originally intended the novel, published in 1954, to be made into a film even before he began writing it and was based on an original manuscript of a screenplay which had been on his mind for years. In 1955, the film rights to Moonraker were initially sold to John Payne of the Rank Organisation
Rank Organisation
The Rank Organisation was a British entertainment company formed during 1937 and absorbed in 1996 by The Rank Group Plc. It was the largest and most vertically-integrated film company in Britain, owning production, distribution and exhibition facilities....
for £10,000 (£ present value), paying a $1000 a month option for nine months. Payne was the first person interested in making the novels into a film series, but later rejected the idea based on the fact it wouldn't be possible for him to obtain the rights to the entire 007 series. In spring 1959, due to on-going difficulties, Fleming eventually bought back the rights for his novels, shortly before selling them to Harry Saltzman
Harry Saltzman
Harry Saltzman was a Canadian theatre and film producer best known for his mega-gamble which resulted in his co-producing the James Bond film series with Albert R...
.
However, as with several previous Bond films, the story from Fleming's novel is almost entirely dispensed with, and little more than the name of Hugo Drax was used in film, in favour of a film more in keeping with the era of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. The 2002 Bond film Die Another Day
Die Another Day
Die Another Day is the 20th spy film in the James Bond series, and the fourth and last film to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond; it is also the last Bond film of the original timeline with the series being rebooted with Casino Royale...
makes further use of some ideas and character names from the novel. Tom Mankiewicz
Tom Mankiewicz
Thomas Frank Mankiewicz was a screenwriter/director/producer of motion pictures and television, perhaps best known for his work on the James Bond films and his contributions to Superman: The Movie and the television series, Hart to Hart.-Early life and career:Mankiewicz was born in Los Angeles on...
had written a full screenplay of Moonraker that was eventually partly discarded. According to Mankiewicz footage shot at Drax's lairs was considerably more detailed than the edited result in the final version. The crew had shot a scene with Drax meeting his co-financiers in his jungle lair and they used the same chamber room below the space shuttle launch pad that Bond and Goodhead eventually escape from. This scene was shot but later cut out. Another scene involving Bond and Goodhead in a meditation room aboard Drax's space station, was shot but never used in the final film. However, press stills were released of the scene which featured on Topps trading cards in 1979 as was a theatrical trailer which featured Bond punching Jaws in the face aboard the space station, neither of which featured in the complete film. Some scenes from Mankiewicz's script were later used in subsequent films, including the Acrostar Jet sequence used in the pre-credit sequence for Octopussy
Octopussy
Octopussy is the thirteenth entry in the James Bond series, and the sixth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film's title is taken from a short story in Ian Fleming's 1966 short story collection Octopussy and The Living Daylights...
, and the Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is a puddle iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889, it has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world...
scene in A View to a Kill
A View to a Kill
A View to a Kill is the fourteenth spy film of the James Bond series, and the seventh and last to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Although the title is adapted from Ian Fleming's short story "From a View to a Kill", the film is the fourth Bond film after The Spy Who Loved...
.
In March 2004, an Internet hoax stated rumours about a lost 1956 version of Moonraker by Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, and a James Bond web site repeated it on April Fool's Day in 2004 as a hoax. Supposedly, this recently discovered lost film was 40 minutes of raw footage with Dirk Bogarde
Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...
as Bond, Welles as Drax, and Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
as Drax's henchman. A film poster was created displaying the actors and the title of the film.
Novelisation
The screenplay of Moonraker differed so much from Ian Fleming's novel that EON ProductionsEON Productions
Eon Productions is a film production company known for producing the James Bond film series. The company is based in London's Piccadilly and also operates from Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom...
and Glidrose Publications authorised the film's screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood (writer)
Christopher Wood is an English screenwriter and novelist best known under the pseudonym 'Timothy Lea' for the Confessions series of novels and films. Under his own name, he adapted two James Bond novels for the screen: The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker .Wood has written many novels...
to write his second novelisation based upon the film. It was named James Bond and Moonraker to avoid confusion with Fleming's original novel Moonraker. It was released in 1979
1979 in literature
The year 1979 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*V.C...
, after the film's release.
Casting
The role of the villain, Hugo Drax, was originally offered to James MasonJames Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
. However, well-established French actor Michael Lonsdale
Michael Lonsdale
Michael Lonsdale , sometimes billed as Michel Lonsdale, is a French actor who has appeared in over 180 films and television shows....
was cast as Drax, partly due to his fluency in English, and Corinne Clery
Corinne Clery
Corinne Cléry, also known as Corinne Piccolo is a French actress.-Biography and filmography:Born near Paris, and raised in Saint Germain-en-Laye, Cléry started her acting career in the late 1960s under the name 'Corinne Piccoli'...
for the part of Corinne Dufour
Corinne Dufour
Corinne Dufour is a fictional character in the James Bond film Moonraker.Corinne Dufour is Sir Hugo Drax's personal pilot and assistant. She first appears when Bond arrives in Los Angeles to investigate Drax: she pilots the helicopter that collects Bond from Los Angeles International airport,...
, given that the film was produced in France. American actress Lois Chiles
Lois Chiles
Lois Cleveland Chiles is an American actress and former fashion model known for her role as Dr. Holly Goodhead in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker.-Early life:...
had originally been offered the role of Anya Amasova
Anya Amasova
Major Anya Amasova is a fictional character and the deuteragonist in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, portrayed by Barbara Bach...
in The Spy Who Loved Me
The Spy Who Loved Me (film)
The Spy Who Loved Me is a spy film, the tenth film in the James Bond series, and the third to star Roger Moore as the fictional secret agent James Bond. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert and the screenplay was written by Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum...
(1977), but had turned down the part when she decided to take temporary retirement. Chiles was cast as Holly Goodhead by chance, when she was given the seat next to Lewis Gilbert
Lewis Gilbert
Lewis Gilbert CBE is an English film director, producer and screenwriter.-Early life:He was the son of music hall performers, and spent his early years travelling with his parents, and watching the shows from the side of the stage. He first performed on-stage at the age of 5, when asked to drive a...
on a flight and he believed she would be ideal for the role as the CIA scientist.
Drax's henchman Chang, played by Japanese aikido
Aikido
is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as "the Way of unifying life energy" or as "the Way of harmonious spirit." Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to...
instructor Toshiro Suga
Toshiro Suga
Toshirō Suga is an aikido instructor. He holds the rank of 6th dan Aikikai.Born in Tokyo, his aikido teachers include Morihei Ueshiba and Morihiro Saito. For many years he taught military forces in Canada. He takes part in international seminars.He had a brief career in cinema, thanks in part to...
, was recommended for the role by executive producer Michael G. Wilson
Michael G. Wilson
Michael Gregg Wilson, OBE is the producer and screenwriter of many modern James Bond movies.-Background:Wilson was born in New York City, New York, the son of Dana and actor Lewis Wilson. His father was the first actor to play the DC Comics character Batman in live action, which he did in the...
, who was one of his pupils. In Moonraker, Wilson also continued a tradition in the Bond films he started in the film Goldfinger
Goldfinger (film)
Goldfinger is the third spy film in the James Bond series and the third to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Released in 1964, it is based on the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. The film also stars Honor Blackman as Bond girl Pussy Galore and Gert Fröbe as the title...
where he has a small cameo role. He appears twice in the film, first as a tourist outside the Venini Glass shop and museum in Venice, then at the end of the film as a technician in Drax's control room.
Richard Kiel
Richard Dawson Kiel is an American actor best known for his role as the steel-toothed Jaws in the James Bond movies The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker as well as the video game Everything or Nothing, and Mr. Larson in Happy Gilmore...
makes a return, although in Moonraker the role is played more for comedic effect than in The Spy Who Loved Me. Jaws was intended to be a villain against Bond to the bitter end, but director Lewis Gilbert stated on the DVD documentary that he received so much fan mail from small children saying "Why can't Jaws be a goodie not a baddie", that as a result he was persuaded to make Jaws gradually become Bond's ally at the end of the film.
Diminutive French actress Blanche Ravalec
Blanche Ravalec
Blanche Ravalec is a French actress and dubbing artist. To English-speaking audiences, she is chiefly known for her role as Dolly, Jaws' girlfriend in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker. Beyond this, however, she has made over seventy appearances in French-language TV and film...
, who had recently begun her career with minor roles in French films such as Michel Lang
Michel Lang
Michel Lang is a French film and television director, best remembered for his comedy films in the late 1970s and 1980s. Since 1990 he has directed predominantly for French television.-Filmography:* 1964 : Un tout autre visage...
's Holiday Hotel
Holiday Hotel
Holiday Hotel is a 1978 French comedy film directed and written by Michel Lang. The film stars Sophie Barjac and Myriam Boyer on a summer holiday in Brittany.-Cast:*Sophie Barjac ... Catherine Guedel...
(1978) and Claude Sautet
Claude Sautet
Claude Sautet was a French author and film director.-Biography:Born in Montrouge, Hauts-de-Seine, France, Claude Sautet first studied painting and sculpture before attending a film university in Paris where he began his career and later became a television producer...
's Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
nominee, A Simple Story
A Simple Story (1978 film)
A Simple Story is a 1978 French drama film directed by Claude Sautet. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.-Cast:* Romy Schneider as Marie* Bruno Cremer as Georges* Claude Brasseur as Serge* Roger Pigaut as Jérôme...
(1978), was cast as the bespectacled Dolly, the girlfriend of Jaws. Originally, the producers were dubious about whether the audience would accept the height difference between them, and only made their decision once they were informed by Richard Kiel that his real-life wife was of the same height. Lois Maxwell
Lois Maxwell
Lois Maxwell was a Canadian actress.Maxwell began her film career in the late 1940s, and won a Golden Globe Award for the New Actress of the Year for her performance in That Hagen Girl...
's 22 year old daughter, Melinda Maxwell, was also cast as one of the "perfect" human specimens from Drax's master race.
Filming
Production began on 14 August 1978. The main shooting was switched from the usual 007 Stage007 Stage
The Albert R. Broccoli 007 Stage is one of the largest silent stages in the world. It is located at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, and named after the famous James Bond film producer Albert R...
at the Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...
to France, due to high taxation in England at the time. Only the cable car interiors and space battle exteriors were filmed at Pinewood. The massive sets designed by Ken Adam
Ken Adam
Sir Kenneth Adam, OBE, born Klaus Hugo Adam , is a motion picture production designer most famous for his set designs for the James Bond films of the 1960s and 1970s.-Childhood in Germany:...
were the largest ever constructed in France and required more than 222,000 man-hours to construct (roughly 1000 hours by each of the crew on average). They were shot at three of France's largest film studios in Épinay
Épinay-sur-Seine
-Transport:Épinay-sur-Seine is served by Épinay-sur-Seine station on Paris RER line C.It is also served by Épinay – Villetaneuse station on the Transilien Paris – Nord suburban rail line....
and Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Boulogne-Billancourt is a sub-prefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department and the seat of the Arrondissement of Boulogne-Billancourt....
.
220 technicians used 100 tonnes of metal, two tonnes of nails and 10,000 feet of wood to build the three-story space station set at Eponay Studios. The elaborate space set for Moonraker holds the world record for having the largest number of zero gravity wires in one scene. The Venetian glass museum and fight between Bond and Chang was shot at Boulogne Studios in a building which had once been a World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
aircraft factory during Germany's occupation of France. The scene in the Venice glass museum and warehouse holds the record for the largest amount of break-away sugar glass
Sugar glass
Sugar glass is used to simulate glass in movies, photographs and plays. Although it is much less likely to cause injuries than real glass, it breaks convincingly, making it an excellent choice for stunts...
used in a single scene.
Vaux-le-Vicomte
The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, 55 km southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne département of France...
, about 55 kilometres (34.2 mi) southeast of Paris, for the exteriors and Grand Salon. The remaining interiors, including some of the scenes with Corinne Defour and the drawing room, were filmed at the Château de Guermantes
Château de Guermantes
Construction of the Château de Guermantes in Lagny-sur-Marne, Seine et Marne, France, was undertaken by Claude Viole , whose family had possessed the fief of "Le Chemin" since the mid sixteenth century. Paulin Pondre purchased the property in 1698...
.
Much of the film was shot in the cities of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Palmdale, Calif., and Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
. The production team had considered India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
as a location in the film but on arriving at those places to investigate, they found that it was inconceivable to write them into the script, particularly with time restrictions to do so. They decided on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, relatively early on, a city that Cubby Broccoli had visited on vacation, and a team was sent to that city in early 1978 to capture initial footage from the Carnaval
Brazilian Carnival
The Carnival of Brazil is an annual festival held forty-six days before Easter. On certain days of Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally abstained from the consumption of meat and poultry, hence the term "carnival," from carnelevare, "to remove meat." Carnival celebrations...
festival, which featured in the film.
Sugarloaf Mountain, Brazil
Sugarloaf Mountain , is a peak situated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean...
was a prominent location in the film, and during filming of the cable car sequence in which Bond and Goodhead are attacked by Jaws during mid-air transportation high above Rio de Janeiro, the stuntman Richard Graydon slipped and narrowly avoided falling to his death. For the scene in which Jaws bites into the steel tramway cable with his teeth, the cable was actually made of liquorice, although Richard Kiel was still required to use his steel dentures.
Iguazu Falls
Iguazu Falls
Iguazu Falls, Iguassu Falls, or Iguaçu Falls are waterfalls of the Iguazu River located on the border of the Brazilian State of Paraná and the Argentine Province of Misiones. The falls divide the river into the upper and lower Iguazu. The Iguazu River originates near the city of Curitiba. It flows...
was a natural location depicted in the film, although as stated by "Q" in the film, the falls were intended to be located somewhere in the upper basin of the Amazon River
Amazon River
The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...
rather than where the falls are actually located in the south of Brazil. The second unit had originally planned on sending an actual boat over the falls. However on attempting to release it, the boat became firmly embedded on rocks near the edge. Despite a dangerous attempt by helicopter and rope ladder to retrieve it, the plan had to be abandoned, forcing the second unit to use a miniature at Pinewood instead. The exterior of Drax's pyramid headquarters in the Amazon rain forest near the falls was actually filmed at the Tikal
Tikal
Tikal is one of the largest archaeological sites and urban centres of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It is located in the archaeological region of the Petén Basin in what is now northern Guatemala...
Mayan ruins in Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
. The interior of the pyramid, however, was designed by Ken Adam at a French studio, in which he purposefully used a shiny coating to make the walls look plastic and false. All of the space centre scenes were shot at the Vehicle Assembly Building of the Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center is the NASA installation that has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. Although such flights are currently on hiatus, KSC continues to manage and operate unmanned rocket launch facilities for America's civilian space program...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, although some of the earlier scenes of the Moonraker assembly plant had been filmed on location at the Rockwell International
Rockwell International
Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate in the latter half of the 20th century, involved in aircraft, the space industry, both defense-oriented and commercial electronics, automotive and truck components, printing presses, valves and meters, and industrial automation....
manufacturing plant in Palmdale, California.
The early scene involving Bond and Jaws in which Bond is pushed out of the aircraft without a parachute
Parachute
A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag, or in the case of ram-air parachutes, aerodynamic lift. Parachutes are usually made out of light, strong cloth, originally silk, now most commonly nylon...
took weeks of planning and preparation. The skydiving sequence was coordinated by Don Calvedt under the supervision of second unit director John Glen. As Calvedt and skydiving champion B.J. Worth developed the equipment for the scene, which included a 1 inches (25.4 mm) parachute pack that could be concealed beneath the suit to give the impression of the missing parachute, and an equipment to prevent the freefalling cameraman from suffering whiplash
Whiplash
Whiplash may refer to:* The long flexible part of a whip* Whiplash , an injury-Film and television:* Whiplash , a 1948 American film noir* Whiplash , a Hong Kong film starring Cheng Pei-pei...
while opening his parachute, they brought in stuntman Jake Lombard to test it all. Lombard eventually played Bond in the scene, with Worth as the pilot from which Bond takes a parachute, and Ron Luginbill as Jaws. Both Lombard and Worth would become regular member of the stunt team for aerial sequences in later Bond films. When the stunt men opened their parachutes at the end of every shoot, custom-sewn velcro
Velcro
Velcro is the brand name of the first commercially marketed fabric hook-and-loop fastener, invented in 1948 by the Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral...
costume seams would separate to allow the hidden parachutes to open. The skydiver cinematographer used a lightweight Panavision
Panavision
Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product...
camera, bought from an old pawn shop in Paris, which he had adapted, and attached to his helmet to shoot the entire sequence. The scene took a total of 88 skydives by the stuntmen to be completed. The only scenes shot in studio were close-ups of Roger Moore and Richard Kiel.
Since NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Space Shuttle program
Space Shuttle program
NASA's Space Shuttle program, officially called Space Transportation System , was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011...
had not been launched, Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings was a British television and cinema special effects expert, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" television puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s James Bond films and the Superman film series.-Early years:Both Meddings' parents had...
and his miniatures team had to create the rocket launch footage without any reference. Shuttle models attached to bottle rocket
Bottle rocket
A bottle rocket is a very small skyrocket. A typical bottle rocket consists of a rocket engine attached to a stabilizing stick. The user can place the stick in an empty bottle , and ignite the rocket engine; the mouth of the bottle guides the stick, stabilizing the rocket in its first moments of...
s and signal flare
Signal Flare
Signal Flare is the name of several fictional characters in the various Transformers universes.-Transformers: Energon:Signal Flare is a young Omnicon. Signal Flare is one of the greatest Energon welders of his kind. His Omnicon brothers depend greatly on his skills and experience...
s were used for takeoff, and the smoke trail was created with salt that fell from the models. The space scenes were done by rewinding the camera after an element was shot, enabling other elements to be superimposed
Superimposition
In graphics, superimposition is the placement of an image or video on top of an already-existing image or video, usually to add to the overall image effect, but also sometimes to conceal something .This technique is used in cartography to produce photomaps by superimposing grid lines, contour lines...
in the film stock, with the space battle needing up to forty rewinds to incorporate everything.
For the scene involving the opening of the musical electronic laboratory door lock in Venice, producer Albert R. Broccoli requested special permission from director Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
to use the five-note melody from his film Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
(1977). In 1985, Broccoli would return the favour by fulfilling Spielberg's request to use the James Bond theme music for a scene in his film, The Goonies
The Goonies
The Goonies is a 1985 American adventure-comedy film directed by Richard Donner. The screenplay was written by Chris Columbus from a story by executive producer Steven Spielberg. The premise surrounds a band of pre-teens who live in the "Goon Docks" neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon hoping to save...
(1985).
Music
Moonraker was the third of the three Bond films for which the theme song was performed by Shirley BasseyShirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
(following Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever). Kate Bush
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
were both considered for the vocals, before Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis
John Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...
was approached and offered the opportunity. However Mathis, despite having started recording with Barry, was unable to complete the project, leaving producers to offer the song to Ms. Bassey just weeks before the premiere date in England. Bassey made the recordings with very short notice and as a result, she never regarded the song 'as her own' as she had never had the chance to perform it in full or promote it first. The film uses two versions of the title theme song, a ballad version heard over the main titles, and a disco version over the closing titles. Confusingly, the United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
single release labelled the tracks on the 7" single as "Moonraker (Main Title)" for the version used to close the film and "Moonraker (End Title)" for the track that opened the film. The song made little impact on the charts, reaching 159, partly attributed to Bassey's failure to promote the single, given the last-minute decision to quickly record it to meet the schedule.
The soundtrack of Moonraker was composed by John Barry
John Barry (composer)
John Barry Prendergast, OBE was an English conductor and composer of film music. He is best known for composing the soundtracks for 12 of the James Bond films between 1962 and 1987...
and recorded in Paris, again, as with production, marking a turning point away from the English location at CTS Studios in London. The score also marked a turning point in John Barry's output, abandoning the Kentonesque brass of his earlier Bond scores and instead scoring the film with slow, rich string passages - a trend which Barry would continue in the 1980s with scores such as Out of Africa and Somewhere in Time
Somewhere in Time (film)
Somewhere in Time is a 1980 romantic science fiction film directed by Jeannot Szwarc. It is a film adaptation of the 1975 novel Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the screenplay...
. For Moonraker, Barry uses for the first time since Diamonds Are Forever
Diamonds Are Forever (film)
Diamonds Are Forever is the seventh spy film in the Eon Productions James Bond series, and the sixth and final Eon Productions film to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film is based on Ian Fleming's 1956 novel of the same name, and is the second of four James Bond films...
(1971) a piece of music called 007 (on track 7), the secondary Bond theme composed by Barry which was introduced in From Russia with Love
From Russia with Love (film)
From Russia with Love is the second in the James Bond spy film series, and the second to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Released in 1963, the film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and directed by Terence Young. It is based on the 1957 novel of the...
during Bond's escape with the Lektor. Barry also made use of classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
passages in the film. For the scene where Bond visits Drax in his chateau, Drax plays Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
's Prelude no. 15 in D-flat major (op. 28), "Raindrop" on his grand piano (although he plays in the key of D major). Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka
Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka
Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka op. 214 is a polka written by Johann Strauss II in 1858 after a successful tour of Russia where he performed in the summer concert season at Pavlovsk, Saint Petersburg....
by Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...
was featured during the hovercraft scene on the Piazza San Marco
Piazza San Marco
Piazza San Marco , is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as "the Piazza". All other urban spaces in the city are called "campi"...
in Venice, and Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet Overture
Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)
Romeo and Juliet is an orchestral work composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is styled an Overture-Fantasy, and is based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on The...
" was used for the scenes in Brazil in which Jaws meets Dolly following his accident. Other passages pay homage to earlier films including Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Also Sprach Zarathustra (op. 30), associated with 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
) with the hunting horn playing its distinctive first three notes, Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...
's theme from The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven is an American Western film directed by John Sturges, and released in 1960. It is a fictional tale of a group of seven American gunmen who are hired to protect a small agricultural village in Mexico from a group of marauding Mexican bandits...
when Bond appears on horseback in gaucho
Gaucho
Gaucho is a term commonly used to describe residents of the South American pampas, chacos, or Patagonian grasslands, found principally in parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Chile, and Southern Brazil...
clothing at MI6 headquarters in Brazil, and the alien-contacting theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
as the key-code for a security door as mentioned previously.
The Italian aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
"Vesti la giubba
Vesti la giubba
"Vesti la giubba" is a famous tenor aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo's 1892 opera Pagliacci. "Vesti la giubba" is the conclusion of the first act, when Canio discovers his wife's infidelity, but must nevertheless prepare for his performance as Pagliaccio the clown because "the show must go on".The...
" from the Ruggero Leoncavallo
Ruggero Leoncavallo
Ruggero Leoncavallo was an Italian opera composer. His two-act work Pagliacci remains one of the most popular works in the repertory, appearing as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.-Biography:...
's opera "I Pagliacci", was sung in Venice, before one of the henchmen falls to his death from a building, landing and ruining a piano, resulting in Bond to quip the often mis-quoted line from the film "Casablanca", "Play it Again, Sam". Finally in 2005, Bassey sang the song for the first time outside James Bond on stage as part of a medley of her three Bond title songs. An instrumental strings version of the title theme was used in 2007 tourism commercials for the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
.
Release
Moonraker premiered on 26 June 1979, in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, grossing $70,308,099 in the UK. Three days after the UK release, it went on general release in the US, openin in 788 cinemas. On the mainland of Europe, the most common month of release was in August 1979, opening in the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden between 13 August and 18 August. Moonraker was released in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
on 27 August. Given that the film was produced largely in France, and it involved some notable French actors, the French premiere for the film was relatively late, released in that country on 10 October 1979. Moonraker grossed a worldwide total of $210,308,099.
Critical reception
Moonraker had a mixed reception by critics. The film has a positive 64% "fresh" rating (63% with Top Critics) on review aggregator website Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, and reviewers such as James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
praised the visual effects and stunts. However, critics often consider Moonraker as one of the lesser films in the series, largely due to the extent of the plot which takes James Bond into space, some of ploys used in the film for comedic effect, and its extended dialogue. In November 2006, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
ranked Moonraker fourteenth among the Bond films, describing it as "by far the campiest
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
of all 007 movies" with "one of the worst theme songs"; while IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
listed it as eleventh, calling it outlandish and saying at despite the actors "trying what they can to ground the film in reality, the laser gun/space station finale pretty much undercuts their efforts"; and Norman Wilner of MSN
MSN
MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.The range of services offered by MSN has changed since its...
chose it as the fourth worst film of the series, considering that the film "just flat-out sucks".
Critic Nicholas Sylvain said of the movie "Moonraker seems to have more than its share of little flaws and annoyances which begin right from the opening pre-credit sequence. The sheer idiocy (and impossibility) of having a fully fueled shuttle on the back of the Boeing during the trans-Atlantic crossing should be evident, and later in the film, the whole Jaws-falls-in-love and becomes a "good guy" routine leaves me rather cold, and provides far too much cheesy comedy moments, as does the gondola driving through the square scene."
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, while clearly expressing his approval of the advanced special effects and Ken Adam's extravagant production sets, criticised the pace in which the locations of the film evolved, remarking that, "it's so jammed with faraway places and science fiction special effects that Bond has to move at a trot just to make it into all the scenes". Christopher Null
Christopher Null
Christopher Null is a film critic, columnist and former blogger for Yahoo! Tech, editor of Drinkhacker.com, and is the founder and editor in chief of Filmcritic.com.-Publications:...
of Filmcritic.com said of the film; "Most rational observers agree that Moonraker is without a doubt the most absurd James Bond movie, definitely of the Roger Moore era and possibly of all time".
However, while he criticised the extravagance of the plot and action sequences, he believed that this added to the enjoyment of the film, and particularly approved of the remark "I think he's attempting re-entry!" by "Q" during Bond and Goodhead's orbiting of the Earth which he described as "featuring what might be the best double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
ever".
Reviewing Moonraker, film critic Danny Peary
Danny Peary
Danny Peary is an American film critic and sports writer. He has written many books on cinema and sports-related topics.-Biography:...
wrote that “The worst James Bond film to date has Roger Moore walking through the paces for his hefty paycheck and giving way to his double for a series of unimaginative action scenes and "humorous" chases. There’s little suspense and the humor falls flat. Not only is Jaws so pacified by love that he becomes a good guy, but the filmmakers also have the gall to set the finale in outer space and stage a battle right out of Star Wars.”
The exaggerated nature of the plot and space station sequence has seen the film parodied on numerous occasions. Of note is the Austin Powers
Austin Powers (film series)
The Austin Powers series is a series of action-comedy films written by and starring Mike Myers as the title character, directed by Jay Roach and distributed by New Line Cinema...
spoof film
Parody film
A parody film is a comedy that satirizes other film genres or films. Although the genre is often overlooked, parody films are commonly profitable at the box office...
The Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, released in 1999, is the second film in the Austin Powers series that began with 1997's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and continued with Austin Powers in Goldmember. The film was directed by Jay Roach, co-written by Mike Myers and screenwriter...
(1999) which whilst a parody of other James Bond films, pays reference to Moonraker by Dr. Evil
Dr. Evil
Dr. Evil is a fictional character, played by Mike Myers in the Austin Powers film series. He is the antagonist of the movies, and Austin Powers' nemesis. He is a parody of James Bond villains, primarily Donald Pleasence's Ernst Stavro Blofeld . Dr...
's lair in space. The scene in which Drax is shot by the cyanide dart and ousted into space is parodied by Powers's ejection of Dr. Evil's clone Mini-Me into outer space in the same way.