The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) is the tenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the third to star Roger Moore as the fictional secret agent James Bond. Barbara Bach and Curt Jürgens co-star. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert and the screenplay was written by Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum.

The film takes its title from Ian Fleming's novel The Spy Who Loved Me, the tenth book in the James Bond series, though it does not contain any elements of the novel's plot. The storyline involves a reclusive megalomaniac named Karl Stromberg, who plans to destroy the world and create a new civilisation under the sea. Bond teams up with a Russian agent, Anya Amasova, to stop Stromberg.

It was shot on location in Egypt (Cairo and Luxor) and Italy (Costa Smeralda, Sardinia), with underwater scenes filmed at the Bahamas (Nassau), and a new soundstage built at Pinewood Studios for a massive set which depicted the interior of a supertanker. The Spy Who Loved Me was well-received by critics. The soundtrack composed by Marvin Hamlisch also met with success. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards amid many other nominations and novelised in 1977 by Christopher Wood as James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me.

Plot

British and Soviet ballistic-missile submarines are mysteriously disappearing. James Bond—MI6 agent 007—is summoned to investigate. On the way to his briefing, Bond escapes an ambush by Soviet agents in Austria, killing their leader during a downhill ski chase. The plans for a highly advanced submarine tracking system are being offered in Egypt. There, he encounters Major Anya Amasova—KGB agent Triple X—his rival to recover the microfilm plans. They travel across Egypt together, encountering Jaws – a tall assassin with razor sharp steel teeth – along the way. Bond and Amasova reluctantly join forces after a truce is agreed by their respective British and Soviet superiors. They identify the person responsible for the thefts as the shipping tycoon, scientist, and anarchist Karl Stromberg.

While travelling by train to Stromberg's base in Sardinia, Bond saves Amasova from Jaws, and their cooling rivalry turns to affection. Posing as a marine biologist and his wife, they visit Stromberg's base and discover that he had launched a mysterious new supertanker, the Liparus, nine months previously. As they leave the base, an unknown henchman on a motorcycle featuring a rocket sidecar, Jaws in a car, and Naomi, an assistant/pilot of Stromberg in an attack helicopter, chase them, but Bond and Amasova escape underwater when his car – a Lotus Esprit from Q Branch – converts into a submarine. Jaws survives a car crash and Naomi is killed when Bond fires a sea-air missile from his car which destroys her helicopter. The pair also encounter a fleet of Stromberg's minisubs which Amasova obliterates by launching mines. Bond finds out that the Liparus has never visited any known port or harbor. Amasova discovers that Bond killed her lover (as shown at the beginning of the movie), and she vows to kill Bond as soon as their mission is complete.

Bond and Amasova examine Stromberg's underwater Atlantis base from an American submarine, and confirm that he is operating the stolen tracking system. The Liparus captures the submarine. Stromberg sets his plan in motion: the simultaneous launching of nuclear missiles from British and Soviet submarines to destroy Moscow and New York City. This would trigger a global nuclear war, which Stromberg would survive in Atlantis, and subsequently a new civilisation would be established underwater. He leaves for Atlantis with Amasova. Bond escapes and frees the captured British, Russian and American sailors and they battle the Liparus's crew. Bond reprograms the submarines to fire missiles at each other, saving Moscow and New York City. The victorious submariners escape the sinking Liparus on the American submarine.

The submarine is ordered to destroy Atlantis but Bond insists on rescuing Amasova first. He confronts and kills Stromberg but again encounters Jaws, whom he drops into a shark tank. However, Jaws kills the shark and escapes. Bond and Amasova flee in an escape pod as Atlantis is sunk. Amasova reminds Bond that she has vowed to kill him as she picks up Bond's gun. Then, she admits to having forgiven him and the two embrace. The Royal Navy recovers the pod and the two spies are seen in an intimate embrace through its port window, much to the bemusement of their superiors on the ship.

Cast

• Roger Moore as James Bond 007: A British MI6 agent assigned to investigate the theft of two submarines.

• Barbara Bach as Anya Amasova/Agent Triple X: A Soviet KGB agent also investigating the theft. Her attraction to Bond is cut short when she learns he killed her lover. Bach was cast only four days before principal photography began, and performed her audition expecting just a role in the film, not one of the protagonists.

• Curd Jürgens (billed as "Curt Jurgens" in the credits) as Karl Stromberg: The main villain, a megalomaniac planning to trigger World War III and destroy the world, then recreate a new civilisation underwater. Jürgens' casting was a suggestion of director Lewis Gilbert, who had worked with him before.

• Richard Kiel as Jaws: Stromberg's seemingly indestructible juggernaut of a henchman, afflicted with gigantism and having a set of metal teeth. He reprised the role in the subsequent Bond film, Moonraker.

• Caroline Munro as Naomi: Stromberg's personal pilot and a would-be assassin. Munro's casting was inspired by an advertisement campaign she had made.

• Walter Gotell as General Gogol: The head of the KGB and Anya's boss. Gotell's debut in the role; he had previously appeared as Morzeny in From Russia with Love and reprised the role of Gogol in the next five films.

• Bernard Lee as M: The head of MI6.

• Desmond Llewelyn as Q/Major Boothroyd: MI6's head of research and development. He supplies Bond with unique vehicles and gadgets, most notably the Lotus Esprit that converts into a submarine.

• Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary.

• Geoffrey Keen as Frederick Gray: The British Minister of Defence. Keen's Bond debut; he appeared in the role in the next five films.

• Robert Brown as Vice-Admiral Hargreaves: Flag Officer, Submarines of Royal Navy; Brown later played M in Octopussy, A View to a Kill, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill.

• George Baker as Captain Benson: A British naval officer stationed at the Royal Navy's Faslane Naval Base in Scotland. Baker had previously appeared in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

• Michael Billington as Sergei Barsov, Russian agent and Anya Amasova's lover.

• Vernon Dobtcheff as Max Kalba: Egyptian nightclub owner and black market racketeer who possesses the microfilm and tries to encourage Bond and Amasova to bid for it. Murdered by Jaws.

• Nadim Sawalha as Fekkesh: Middle-man on the trail of the stolen microfilm. Murdered by Jaws.

• Olga Bisera as Felicca: Fekkesh's glamorous associate who falls victim to a trap set for Bond.

• Edward de Souza as Sheikh Hosein: Cambridge-educated Arab sheikh and old friend of Bond.

• Shane Rimmer as Commander Carter: captain of the American submarine.

• Bryan Marshall as Commander Talbot: captain of the captured British submarine.

• Milton Reid as Sandor: Stromberg's henchman.

• Sue Vanner as Log Cabin Girl: Beautiful Russian agent who sets a trap for 007 in the pre-credit sequence.

• Eva Reuber-Staier as Rubelvitch: General Gogol's secretary.

• Marilyn Galsworthy as Stromberg's assistant: Treacherous secretary who steals the tracking system microfilm. Stromberg feeds her to his pet shark. In the novelisation of the film, her name is said to be Kate Chapman.

The assistant director for the Italian locations, Victor Tourjansky, had a cameo as a man drinking his wine as Bond's Lotus emerges from the beach. As an in-joke, he returned in similar appearances in another two Bond films shot in Italy, Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only.

Production

The Spy Who Loved Me in many ways was a pivotal film for the Bond franchise, and was plagued since its conception by many problems. The first was the departure of Bond producer Harry Saltzman, who was forced to sell his half of the Bond film franchise in 1975 for £20 million. Saltzman had branched out into several other ventures of dubious promise and consequently was struggling through personal financial reversals unrelated to Bond. This was exacerbated by the twin personal tragedies of his wife's terminal cancer and many of the symptoms of clinical depression in himself.

Another troubling aspect of the production was the difficulty in obtaining a director. The producers approached Steven Spielberg, who was in post-production of Jaws, but ultimately decided to wait to see "how the fish picture turns out". The first director attached to the film was Guy Hamilton, who directed the previous three Bond films as well as Goldfinger, but he left after being offered the opportunity to direct the 1978 film Superman, although Richard Donner took over the project. Eon Productions later turned to Lewis Gilbert, who had directed the earlier Bond film You Only Live Twice.

With a director finally secured, the next hurdle was finishing the script, which had gone through several revisions by numerous writers. The initial villain of the film was Ernst Stavro Blofeld; however Kevin McClory, who owned the film rights to Thunderball forced an injunction on Eon Productions against using the character of Blofeld, or his international criminal organisation, SPECTRE, which delayed production of the film further. The villain was later changed from Blofeld to Stromberg so that the injunction would not interfere with the production. Christopher Wood was later brought in by Lewis Gilbert to complete the script. Although Fleming had requested that no elements from his original book be used, the film characters of Jaws and Sandor are based on the novel characters Sol Horror and Sluggsy Morant, respectively. Horror is described as having steel-capped teeth, while Sluggsy had a clear bald head.

Since Ian Fleming permitted Eon to use only the name of his novel and not the actual novel, Fleming's name was moved for the first time from above the film's title to above "James Bond 007". His name reverted to the traditional location for Moonraker, the last Eon Bond film based on a Fleming novel before 2006's Casino Royale. However, the credit style first used in The Spy Who Loved Me has been used on all Eon Bond films since For Your Eyes Only, including Casino Royale.

Script

Broccoli commissioned a number of writers to work on the script, including Stirling Silliphant, John Landis, Ronald Hardy, Anthony Burgess, and Derek Marlowe. In the second volume of his autobiography, Burgess claims to have worked on an early treatment for the movie. The British television producer Gerry Anderson also stated that he provided a film treatment (although originally planned to be Moonraker) much similar to what ended up as The Spy Who Loved Me.

Eventually, Richard Maibaum provided the screenplay, and at first he tried to incorporate ideas from all of the other writers into his script. Maibaum's original script featured an alliance of international terrorists attacking SPECTRE's headquarters and deposing Blofeld, before trying to destroy the world for themselves to make way for a New World Order. However, this was shelved.

After Gilbert was reinstated as director, he decided to bring in another writer, Christopher Wood. Gilbert also decided to fix what he felt the previous Roger Moore films were doing wrong, which was writing the Bond character too much the way Sean Connery played him, and instead portray Bond closer to the books — "very English, very smooth, good sense of humour". Broccoli asked Wood to create a villain with metal teeth, Jaws, inspired by a brace-wearing henchman named Horror in Fleming's novel.

Broccoli agreed to Wood's proposed changes, but before he could set to work there were more legal complications. In the years since Thunderball, Kevin McClory had set up two film companies and was trying to make a new Bond film in collaboration with Sean Connery and novelist Len Deighton. McClory got wind of Broccoli's plans to use SPECTRE, an organisation that had first been created by Fleming while working with McClory and Jack Whittingham on the very first attempt to film Thunderball, back even before it was a novel, in the late 1950s. McClory threatened to sue Broccoli for alleged copyright infringement, claiming that he had the sole right to include SPECTRE and its agents in all films. Not wishing to extend the already ongoing legal dispute that could have delayed the production of The Spy Who Loved Me, Broccoli requested Wood remove all references to Blofeld and SPECTRE from the script.

In the film, Stromberg's scheme to destroy civilisation by capturing Soviet and British nuclear submarines and have them fire intercontinental ballistic missiles at two major cities is actually a recycled plot from Gilbert's previous Bond film, You Only Live Twice, which involved stealing space capsules to start a war between the Soviets and the Americans. The similarity was apparent in the climax; both films involved an assault on a heavily fortified enemy that had taken refuge behind steel shutters.

The scheme in which the villain wishes to destroy mankind to create a new race or new civilisation was also used in Moonraker, the next film after The Spy Who Loved Me. In Moonraker, the villain Hugo Drax had an obsession with starting human civilisation over again on Earth, using specially chosen "superior human specimens" based in space. The film Moonraker was also written by Christopher Wood.

Tom Mankiewicz, who worked on the three preceding Bond films, claims he was called in to do an extensive rewrite of the script. Mankiewicz says he did not receive credit, because Broccoli was limited to the number of non-English in key positions he could employ on the films to obtain Eady Levy assistance.