Octopussy: Film – Trivia
- When Bond bends metal bars surrounding a window after weakening them with acid, a brief musical quote of the theme from Superman (1978) can be heard.
- Maud Adams (Octopussy) previously appeared (and was killed) in another James Bond film (The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)). Faye Dunaway and Sybil Danning were considered for the role.
- The elephant hunt sequence had its origins in the The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). Producer Harry Saltzman had wanted an elephant stampede in the film so Bond and Scaramanga could chase each other on elephant back. The rest of the creative team balked at the idea, but Saltzman went to see an elephant trainer. It turns out that elephants need a special shoe on their feet to protect them from rough surfaces when they work. A few months later, while filming in Thailand, Albert R. Broccoli got a call saying his elephant shoes were ready. Harry Saltzman had apparently ordered about 2,600 pairs of them. The sequence did not end up being in “The Man with the Golden Gun” and the man who made the shoes did not get paid. As of 1990, EON Productions allegedly still owed him.
- During casting, James Brolin was almost given the role of James Bond when at the last minute, Roger Moore agreed to play Bond again. Brolin’s screen tests can be seen on the DVD. Moore had gone out of contract after For Your Eyes Only (1981). The production went with safe-bet and popular Moore because the film would be competing with Never Say Never Again (1983) starring original and former James Bond actor and legend Sean Connery. The uncertainty in using an American actor in the role and having to introduce a new actor in going-up against Connery were the reasons.
- James Brolin, Oliver Tobias and Michael Billington were screen-tested for the role of James Bond.
- Vehicles featured included an Acrostar Mini Jet aka a Bede Jet; yellow and black three-wheeled Indian Auto Rickshaw Tuk-Tuk Company Taxis; a dark gray metallic Alfa Romeo GTV 6 Quadrifoglio; a white Volkswagen Beetle or VW bug; various Mercedes makes including a black Mercedes-Benz 250 SE, Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman and Mercedes-Benz 240D; Kamal Khan’s black Rolls Royce Phantom III car and private Beechcraft C-45 ‘Twin Beech’ plane; Q’s Hot Air Balloon; an Alligator Boat; five BMW 5 series sedans and a BMW motorcycle for the West German police vehicles; a Range Rover convertible; Army Truck and Willys jeep; and an Aerospatiale Alouette 316B helicopter.
- The backgammon game was originally intended to take place in Max Kalba’s club in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
- The Acrostar Jet was 12 feet long with a single micro-turbo jet engine TRS-18. It could fly at 160 mph and soar at 310 mph and reach 30,000 feet with a climbing rate of 2500 feet per minute. It was piloted and owned by J.W. ‘Corkey’ Fornof of Louisiana who had been an uncredited aviation consultant on Moonraker (1979) and also worked on Licence to Kill (1989) as a pilot.
- First James Bond film to be released with the MGM Lion logo at the beginning. MGM merged with United Artists in 1982, the year before the release of Octopussy and this is the first Bond film distributed by the new company, MGM/UA Distribution Co.
- The Octopussy character was originally intended to be a villainess and in the media at the time it was reported that Faye Dunaway was being considered for this part.
- Cameo: [Michael G. Wilson] a passenger on the riverboat / a Soviet Security Council Member.
- When Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny introduces her new assistant Penelope Smallbone (Michaela Clavell) to James Bond (Roger Moore), during one take, she accidentally called her Penelope Smallbush instead.
- It was not a planned part of the Indian cabbie chase sequence when a cyclist rode between the two battling vehicles, providing added suspense.
- Footage of Roger Moore and Kristina Wayborn in bed shown in one of the film’s trailers is not included in the film itself.
- Another actor was hired in addition to Vijay Amritraj when there was a dispute with Actor’s Equity because Armitraj was not a member of the actor’s union.
- Stuntman Martin Grace had a serious accident while filming on the train. Hanging on the side of it, the train went into a non-assessed area of the track and he rammed into a pilon, seriously damaging his leg and hip and hospitalizing him for six months. He made a full recovery.
- In the train-flying car stunt, when the car landed, one of the stunt men dressed as a fisherman only just made it out of the row boat in the lake where the car was landing. This footage can be seen in the finished film.
- The crocodile water vessel that James Bond travels in is a reference / homage to the diving suit with a pigeon-on-the-head sequence from Goldfinger (1964).
- Ken Burns, an extra working on the film at the Nene Valley train location was allowed to film a Super-8 six minute film of the filming at the Peterborough, England location. This is now available to view on the Ultimate Edition DVD of the film. The short includes footage of Roger Moore and Michael G. Wilson and focuses on machinery and filmmaking mechanics. The sixteen year old extra was playing an East German Border Guard and lived near to the location. He was affectionately known on the set as the “3rd Unit”.
- Vijay Amritraj is a professional tennis player in real life.
- The “company” taxi used to pick up 007 was specially constructed at Pinewood Studios, and capable of speeds in excess of 70mph.
- Robert Brown appears as “M” for the first time.
- The end credits identity the next film as, “From A View to a Kill.” In fact the title wound up being A View to a Kill (1985).
- Bond meets up with Vijay when he hears Vijay play a few bars of “The James Bond Theme.”
- Q appears as an active participant in a mission for the first time, as opposed to being behind the scenes.
- The other source material, the short story “Property of a Lady,” was originally published in a special edition of an auction house catalog. It was not part of the original short story collection Octopussy, but was added later when the book was published in paperback.
- The pre-title sequence with the Acrostar plane was originally intended to be a You Only Live Twice (1967) Little Nelly type battle sequence in Moonraker (1979) and was to take place above the Angel Falls in Venezuela. It had to be scrapped when the fall’s river bed dried up.
- The Acrostar plane used in the pre-title sequence is now hanging from the ceiling of a restaurant in Clearwater Florida, USA.
- Octopussy’s island was located in Udaipur, India. It was also known as the “City of Sunrise”.
- According to press reports prior to production, Persis Khambatta was a front-runner for the title role.
- The character of Penelope Smallbone was named for one of the models who appeared in the opening credits to The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
- Director Trademark: [John Glen] [[pigeon]: As Bond creeps on the ledge after breaking out of his room at Kamal’s mansion.]
- Octopussy is said to be the daughter of an Major Dexter Smythe who had a pet octopus and was involved with a murder relating to an illegal cache of Nazi gold. James Bond allowed him to commit suicide rather than be captured. This is the only reference to Ian Fleming’s original short story “Octopussy” in the film. The Maud Adams Octopussy character does not appear in the short story as there it is the name of the pet octopus. Technically therefore, in the film, Octopussy’s real name would be or would have been Ms. Smythe.
- “The Living Daylights”, the third short story in Ian Fleming’s Octopussy collection, is briefly referenced at the start of the film: a British agent trying to escape from East Germany.
- At one point during Bond’s escape from Khan’s palace, we hear the famous Tarzan yell from the Johnny Weissmuller films of the 1930s.
- The knife-throwing twin assassins were originally conceived for Moonraker (1979), but when that film’s story developed into a different direction they were put aside for this one.
- Roger Moore uses the Walther P-5 throughout much of the film.
- A large portrait of clown Lou Jacobs of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus can be seen during the circus performance sequence.
- The last film of Patrick Barr.
- The license plate number of Kamal Khan’s (Louis Jourdan) brown sedan Mercedes car in West Germany was SR 4785.
- The license plate number of General Orlov’s West German Mercededss was BT-36-72. The license plate number of the red West German Kharmann Ghia full of party-goers who do not help a desperate 007 was BT RS 1730.
- The Fabergé Egg as seen in the film was actually the Imperial Coronation Egg designed by Peter Carl Fabergé. It was made 1897 to commemorate the 1894 Coronation of Czar Nicholas II. The jeweled egg contains a model of a Coronation Coach; a guilloché field of starbursts with a translucent lime yellow enameling on the exterior surface; trellised greenish gold laurel leave bands have mounted at each intersection point an opaque black enamelled Imperial gold double-headed eagle with a rose diamond on their chest; on the top is a large portrait diamond with a cluster of ten smaller diamonds; and a smaller portrait diamond is set within a cluster of rose diamonds at the reverse end. Almost twenty years later the egg would re-appear in the film Ocean’s Twelve (2004).
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