For Your Eyes Only was one of Roger Moore’s two personal favourite James Bond films, along with 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me.
The film was a monster hit, grossing $195million on a $28milllion budget and continues to entertain, back on our screens this weekend on ITV on Sunday.
It signalled a return to more grounded action sequences after its space-race predecessor Moonraker was heavily criticised for outlandish plots and gadgets.
The film’s leading man might have appreciated the grittier tone, but he was not expecting to be quite so traumatised by some of the ensuing scenes he had to shoot.
Finding himself rather shaken and stirred, he resorted to alcohol and pills to help him cope. Scroll down to watch the scene.
As always with 007’s death-defying adventures, For Your Eyes Only already featured some hair-raising scenes.
Moore is pictured with his hands tied, ready on set for a scene where Bond is dragged through shark-infested waters.
In another lengthy adrenalised sequence, he was lashed to a sled speeding down a cliff edge with co-star John Wyman who later said: “You feared for your life. You might think this was the end of it… we could have both gone off the cliff had the guy (directing the sled) turned the wrong way.”
In fact, during the film shoot, 23-year-old stuntman Paolo Rigoni died during the filming of the bobsleigh chase.
Moore himself, always the most self-deprecating of stars, constantly played down his own efforts and the use of stunt doubles.
He joked:”I’m doubled in love scenes. I’m not good after the third take,” while insisting stunts were another matter: “I do all of them actually… I do all my own lying.”
However, he was definitely not serious when he said, “I did some of the stunts like jumping off a cliff with a parachute but I always had a double for the kissing scenes,” because he had one massive fear, greater than any other.
Moore must have been horrified when he saw that a major part of the movie was going to be filmed at a monastery high in the Meteora Mountains.
His problems were almost solved when the monks started covering the buildings with sheets and pieces of plastic, trying to halt the making of a film they believed immorally promoted violence.
The case was settled by the Greek Supreme Court, which decreed that the monks only rights over the interiors of the monastery.
Filming resumed and Moore had to face his greatest fear, in a scene that even the veteran stuntman Rick Sylvester said made him fear for his life.
In the action sequence, Bond dangles from a thin rope calmly using his bootlaces to help him climb up, while a villain rappels down to kick out his supports before 007 takes him out with a thrown knife.
Sylvester said: “From where we were, you could see the local cemetery; and the box [to stop my fall] looked like a casket. You didn’t need to be an English major to connect the dots.”
These scenes filmed around the vertiginous cliffs were an absolute horror for Moore who suffered from vertigo. He later admitted he drained tall glasses of beer and took valium before filming.
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY IS ON ITV AT 3PM ON SUNDAY, JULY 9
