Facts > Films > You Only Live Twice
You Only Live Twice (1967) Facts
| Director(s) | Lewis Gilbert |
| Producer(s) | Harry Saltzman, Albert R. Broccoli |
| Featured Cast | Sean Connery, Mie Hama, Donald Pleasence, Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewelyn |
| Total Facts | 79 |
Akiko Wakabayashi playing Aki could not drive a motor-vehicle so six stuntmen created the illusion of her driving the white Toyota 2000GT convertible by attaching a cable and pulling it from outside frame.
Mie Hama was dubbed by the series' regular voice-over artist Nikki Van der Zyl.
Tsai Chin, who played Bond's playmate in the opening pre-credit sequence, returned to the Bond series nearly 40 years later when she played one of the players in Le Chiffre's big poker match in Casino Royale.
Burt Kwouk as SPECTRE Agent No. #3 is dubbed. Kwouk had previously played Mr. Ling in the earlier James Bond movie Goldfinger.
Charles Gray (Henderson) would later play Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever. In 1967, he played in The Night of the Generals opposite Donald Pleasence, who plays Blofeld in this film.
Alexander Knox who played the American Secretary of Defense (uncredited) was re-voiced by an unknown actor. Although Canadian by birth, Knox's natural speaking voice carried a strong British accent.
Peter R. Hunt was the original editor. The producers were not happy with the film, and pleaded with Hunt to return as editor. He did this on the condition that he could direct the next Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
David Niven, whom Kissy Suzuki's bird is named after, was an early choice by Ian Fleming to play the role of James Bond, and appeared in the 1966 James Bond spoof, Casino Royale.
Ian Fleming named the character of Dikko Henderson for his friend Sir John Nicholas Henderson who was commonly known as Nicko Henderson.
Eva Renzi turned down the role of Bond-Girl Helga Brandt which finally went to Karin Dor.
John Jordan ("Aerial Unit Camera") lost his leg while working on the film.
Ken Adam's volcano set was constructed at Pinewood Studios outside London and consisted of a movable helicopter platform, a working monorail system, a launch pad and a full scale rocket mock-up that could simulate lift-off. 700 tonnes of structural steel and 200 miles of tubular steel were used. Adam once said that the set used more steel than that used for the London Hilton Hotel. The set also used 200 tonnes of plaster, 500,000 tubular couplings and over 250,000 square yards of canvas were all employed in the construction of the set which cost just over $1 million.
Teru Shimada, who plays Mr Osato, was working as a caretaker when he was cast in the role.
A cover version of the film's title song "You Only Live Twice" was recorded by 'Bjork' for David Arnold's Bond song compilation album, "Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project". However, the song was not included on the compilation album.
A number of actors were asked to play Blofield before Donald Pleasence, but all has stage or TV commitments which made them unable on accept the role. Producer Harry Saltzman, who had an eccentric choice for actors to play villains, had originally hired the fabled Czech actor Jan Werich to play Blofeld. Werich was the personification of sophisticated intellectual humor in Czech theater and film, and was known as the "Wise Clown". Casting a clown as a demonic villain backfired during production: It was felt that Werich looked too much like Father Christmas to be menacing and he was released after a week's shooting.
A scene where a helicopter grabs a car of Spectre with a magnet was an idea conceived by Dana Broccoli, wife of producer Albert R. Broccoli.
A song composed by Robbie Williams extensively sampled the title theme from You Only Live Twice. The song called "Millenium" was composed sampling the main string sample from the John Barry original theme. It was the first solo UK number one hit for Williams on 19 September 1998. Also, its music video included a number of James Bond 007 iconography and imagery.
According to numerous call sheets, a total of 98 stunt men were used in the volcano scenes.
Actor Tetsurô Tanba (Tanaka) later became a religious leader in Japan.
Actor and Stuntman Joe Robinson instructed Sean Connery in the art of Judo for the scene where Bond has to fight with Blofeld's giant bodyguard Hans near the end of the film. Robinson also doubled the actor Ronald Rich who portrayed Hans. He would later appear as diamond smuggler Peter Franks in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever.
After it was discovered that Mie Hama playing Kissy Suzuki couldn't swim, Sean Connery's then wife, actress Diane Cilento, doubled for her in her swimming scenes wearing a black wig. Some reports claims that Hama could not do them because of stomach cramps.
Before the title sequence there is an outdoor shot of a Russian radar station, where US and Soviet leaders are having a crisis meeting. This was in fact filmed at Magerø in the Oslo fjord in Norway (uncredited), to get a Nordic winter light feel to the footage. The dome-shaped radar station is still in operation today, run - as it was then - by the Norwegian military.
Bond producer Barbara Broccoli grew up in the behind-the-scenes world of James Bond and as a child during location shooting in Japan for this movie she caught a fever from the Japanese custom of sleeping on the floor. James Bond star Sean Connery's star status provided him with a comfortable bed and he generously relinquished it so she could properly fight her illness.
Despite being a major character in this film, Kissy Suzuki's name is never mentioned once on screen. Nor do we learn Aki's last name. Both situations are unique among major Bond film characters.
Director Lewis Gilbert originally turned down the directing job on this movie.
Eon productions considered hiring Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's production company - the company that made their Supermarionation shows such as Stingray, Thunderbirds, and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - to help out with the film's SFX work; it would not be until The Man with the Golden Gun that Derek Meddings, chief FX technician for the Andersons, would go to work on a Bond film.
Ernst Stavro Blofeld was named after Tom Blofeld with whom James Bond creator Ian Fleming went to school at Eton. His son is cricket commentator Henry Blofeld. Blofeld's birth-date as given in the novel is the same date as Ian Fleming's birthday which is 28 May 1908.
First Bond film in which 007 does not visit Britain at all. Because of this plot point, M and Miss Moneypenny are given portable offices - a gimmick reused in The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker.
First Bond film not to show the MI6 headquarters.
First film to show James Bond in his Royal Navy uniform and to clearly indicate that he holds the rank of Commander.
Footage of the US Jupiter spacecraft in the film is actually film of the real Gemini spacecraft which flew between 1965 and 1966. The Gemini spacecraft were used for testing of such activities as EVA and docking for the Apollo space project which was to follow. Ironically, the Soviet spacecraft in the film were called Gemini (the name of the real life US spacecraft) and their designs were based on inaccurate UK perceptions of what the Russian Voskhod and Vostok spacecraft looked like, something which was not known until 1967 after the film had wrapped shooting.
In a rather curious train of events, Robbie Williams famously sampled the intro to this title song (as sung by Nancy Sinatra) for his no. 1 hit song "Millennium" (1998). After YOLT wrapped, Sinatra and father Frank Sinatra duetted on the song "Somethin' Stupid" topping the US and UK charts in April 1967. Thirty four years later Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman duetted on the same song topping the UK charts (2001).
In order to gain some measure of authenticity for the team of stuntmen who would double as Ninja in the climactic battle in the volcano, the producers enlisted the help of Japan's only practicing Ninja master, 34-year-old Masaaki Hatsumi who had inherited the tradition from his then retired teacher Toshitsugu Takamatsu. Both Takamatsu and Hatsumi had advised during the production of the first two of the Japanese "Shinobi No Mono" Ninja Assassins series of films produced in Japan between 1962 and 1966, and not only did the film provide an opportunity for Hatsumi to give more credibility to the Ninja characters, but also allowed him a few brief moments of screen time aboard Tiger Tanaka's private train, as he interrupts Bond and Tanakas Sake discussion to announce that the photographs are ready for viewing.
In Sept. 1972, United Artists was widely exhibiting this film on a double bill with Thunderball with the tag line "The 2 Biggest Bonds of All".
In the article "The Oriental Beauties of You Only Live Twice", published with a pictorial in the June 1967 issue of "Playboy" Magazine, screenwriter Roald Dahl claimed that he assembled his script to a formula already established in the previous films in the series, and that he never took the script seriously. In fact, he said that the formula was strictly enforced by the producers, who would broach no deviation. This was not the first connection of the film with the magazine: An excerpt of Ian Fleming's original novel had appeared in the April 1964 issue of "Playboy".
In the German-dubbed version Spectre is called Spectre for the first time; it had the name Phantom in the previous movies.
In the novel, Ian Fleming describes Blofeld's hide-out as being a castle on the coast. Ken Adam discovered that this could never be. The Japanese never built their castles directly on the coast for fear of typhoons. Hence the creation of the elaborate volcano set.
James Bond does not drive a car in this film. This is the only EON Productions James Bond film to date in which James Bond does not drive a vehicle.
James Bond participates in a Japanese wedding ceremony in the film. Mercifully, he uses a false name, otherwise this would mean he would have been still married under Japanese law when he wed Tracy di Vincenzo in the next film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Last Bond film to make extensive use of voice dubbing. In this film and most of those made previously, many of Bond's leading ladies and villains were overdubbed by other actors. This practice rarely occurred in future Bond films.
Little Nellie is based on the real-life Wallis Autogyro. Its inventor, Wing Commander K.H. Wallis, actually flew Little Nellie in the film. The machine was incorporated into the plot after production designer Ken Adam heard Wallis in a radio interview discussing his invention. Wallis had to log 85 flights in total to film the sequence. It was all filmed outside of Japan because Japanese Law forbade the firing of rockets in the air.
Local Japanese girls cast as extras refused to wear bikinis in publicity photo shoots. On the intervention of producer Albert R. Broccoli, consent was able to be achieved.
Much of the story structure of this film would be re-used extensively in The Spy Who Loved Me as well as Moonraker and then again for Tomorrow Never Dies.
Only Bond film in which 007 refers to Miss Moneypenny by the nickname "Penny". This nickname was also used on occasion in the original Ian Fleming novel series.
Out of simple courtesy on Bond's part, this is the only film in which he accepts a Martini (from Henderson) that is stirred, not shaken. This is an intentional joke by the producers, not a mistake by either of the actors.
Product placements, brand integrations and promotional tie-ins for this movie include Toyota, particularly the Toyota 2000GT; Stolichnaya Vodka; Sony Electronics, a Sony TV monitor is seen in the Toyota 2000GT; Jack Daniel's Whiskey; Suntory Old Whisky; Rolex Watches, James Bond wears a Rolex Submariner; Dom Perignon Champagne, particularly a Dom Perignon '59; and Martini & Rossi Vermouth.
Reportedly, the noise made during the shooting of the film's grand finale on the volcano set scared Blofeld's white cat that it ran away. It wasn't found for days and it was eventually discovered hiding in some of the set's rafters. Apparently, footage of the scaredy cat wound up in the finished movie when Blofeld's security shutters are enforced.
Retired US Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Russhon acted as a technical advisor, military liaison, helped set up a product-placement deal with Sony, attended the location scout, assisted with obtaining important transportation means and advised on the logistics for working in Japan.
SPECTRE's space capsule was modeled after Gemini 9's Augmented Target Docking Adapter. When it's shroud failed to open it had a look that gave it the nickname "Angry Alligator".
The "Little Nellie" gyrocopter shown being assembled is not the one that is shown flying. The "kit" machine was a mockup made strictly for the assembly sequence. The WA-118 gyrocopter was flown by its owner Wing Commander K.H. Wallis during all the action sequences.