James Bond’s Tastes: The Spy Who Loved Me

Ian Fleming’s 1962 James Bond novel, the ninth in the series, was his own least favorite, for its experimental first person narrative of a Canadian woman whom Bond—who shows up two-thirds of the way in—eventually saves from thugs was not his forte. It received poor reviews and Fleming refused to sell the story to the Bond filmmakers, allowing them only to buy the title.

The book’s plot has Viv Michel reminiscing about failed love affairs and an abortion she’d had in Switzerland. She travels through the Adirondacks on her way back to her Canadian home, checking into a motel two mobsters intend to set on fire to collect insurance money, with her inside. Bond appears on the scene only because, while on his way to Toronto to pick up a defecting nuclear scientist, he gets a flat tire near the motel.

Bond manages to kill the mobsters, named Sluggsy and Horror, then sleeps with Viv, leaving a goodbye note to her the next morning. Nothing in the short novel has anything to do with Bond’s tastes. There are only glancing references to Viv enjoying some pink Champagne, foie gras, caviar, spaghetti “bolognaise,” egg-and-bacon sandwiches and a bottle of Kentucky Gentleman bourbon.

Neither does the book’s plot have anything to do with the movie, the tenth in the series, which came out in 1977, starring Roger Moore in his third turn as 007. Given the success of previous Bond films, The Spy Who Loved Me had a huge $13.5 million budget and involved many international locations. It went on to gross $185.4 million worldwide.

In the movie, Bond investigates the disappearance of two submarines, one British, the other Soviet. In Austria, he is almost killed by Soviet agents skiing down a mountain. He is next in Egypt to find who is selling a sub tracking system. There he meets the beautiful Anya Amasova, KGB agent Triple X (Barbara Bach), and encounters the fearsome Jaws (Richard Kiel), a giant with steel teeth.

Together 007 and Triple X travel to Sardinia to find a shipping magnate named Karl Stromberg (Kurt Jürgens), who had recently launched a gigantic supertanker, the Liparus, on which he is seen having a lavish meal of lobster, stone crabs, oysters, poached fish and Champagne.

Bond and Anya must escape Jaws, who is on a motorcycle, and another assassin, Naomi (Caroline Munro), in an attack helicopter. They escape in a Lotus Esprit that Q Branch has converted to drive underwater.

Anya discovers that Bond had killed her lover, so she vows to kill Bond, as soon as their mission is complete. They board a submarine to track the Liparus, but are captured by the crew of the tanker, from which Stromberg plans to launch nuclear missiles from the captured British and Soviet submarines to obliterate Moscow and New York, which would trigger a global nuclear war.

Bond manages to re-program the submarines into firing the nukes at each other, destroying the subs. He then rescues Anya, kills Stromburg and drops Jaws into a shark tank. Anya decides not to kill Bond, and the Royal Navy recovers a waterproof pod in which the two spies are in an intimate embrace.

The film has the most exotic locales of any in the series, beginning with Bond’s skiing away from an overnight lover, who calls agents to kill him. The mountain was called “Berngarten,” but the ski scene (in which Bond seems to be falling to his death but is saved by a Union Jack parachute ) was actually filmed on the 3,000-foot Asgard Peak in Auyuittuq National Park on the east coast of Nunavut, Canada.

In Egypt, Bond, dressed in Bedouin robes and looking like Lawrence of Arabia, enjoys a meal of fruit in a tent arrayed with beautiful women he may choose among. Later, at Cairo’s Mujaba Club, Anya sips rum on the rocks and orders Bond his famous martini “shaken not stirred.” (So much for his ever traveling incognito.) She also uses that description when Jaws gets crushed between a van and a wall but survives “shaken but not stirred.”

Outside of town Bond attends a spectacular son et lumière filmed at the Giza Necropolis complex, about 15 miles southwest of the city. (Such shows are still presented in that location nightly for tourists.) After he meets Anya, they drive to Luxor, on the Nile about 450 miles south of Cairo, and find Jaws stalking them around the Temple of Karnak.

In Sardinia, on the island’s jet set side of Costa Smeralda, Bond checks into the Hotel Cala di Volpe. The final scenes on the water were filmed off New Providence Island at Coral Harbor, where Thunderball and the opening scene of Casino Royale had scenes.

At the movie’s end, cocooned in their watertight pod, 007 and Anya sip Dom Pérignon ’52 that Stromburg had stored there. Bond observes, “Any man who drinks Dom Pérignon ’52 can’t be all bad.”