Trivia - From Russia With Love

The budget was $2,000,000 (double that of Dr. No (1962)).

This was chosen as the second 007 film after President John F. Kennedy listed the book among his top ten favorite novels of all time.

According to the book "Death of a President" (1964) by William Raymond Manchester, this was the last motion picture John F. Kennedy ever saw, on 20 November 1963, in the White House.

The film's USA release was delayed due to the political climate after the JFK assassination.

"Q"/ Major Boothroyd played by Desmond Llewelyn appears for the first time. This character was played by Peter Burton in Dr. No (1962). When Burton was unable to return for this film, the role was recast with Llewelyn in the part. Llewelyn would reprise the role of "Q" in 16 subsequent Bond films (17 performances in all, he didn't appear in Live and Let Die (1973)), the most times a single actor has played the same role in major motion picture history.

Pedro Armendáriz was terminally ill during filming. Towards the end of shooting, Terence Young had to double for the actor. Shortly after the film wrapped Armendáriz committed suicide.

This is the Second and final appearance of Sylvia Trench. The plan was for Sylvia to be a recurring character a la Moneypenny, but the idea was dropped after this film.

Walter Gotell, who plays Morzeny, would later become a regular in the Bond films as General Gogol.

Anthony Dawson, playing the unseen Blofeld, had previously played Professor Dent in Dr No [1962].

Colonel Rosa Klebb is based on an actual Russian colonel that Ian Fleming once wrote about in the Sunday Times.

Daniela Bianchi's voice was dubbed.

Vladek Sheybal (Kronsteen the chess master) was a well-studied Polish actor hesitant to accept a role in a Bond film because he thought it might not be a good career move, but his friend Connery persuaded him to sign on and it has helped his career enormously

Location manager Bill Hill was forced to play the role of the real Captain Nash when the actor hired for the role couldn't make it at the last minute.

Two actresses with bit parts would reappear in later films: Nadja Regin, who plays Kerim's girl, would play the dancer at the start of Goldfinger (1964), and Martine Beswick, one of the Gypsy girls, returned as Paula in Thunderball (1965).

Speaking to Robert Osborne of the Hollywood Reporter [12 April 1982], Broccoli named From Russia With Love one of his favourite Bond films, alongside Goldfinger [1964] and The Spy Who Loved Me [1977].

In this film, James Bond does not say "Bond, James Bond."

This is the first Bond movie of two where Q is referred to by his real name: "Major Boothroyd". The other is The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).

First Bond film to feature a story sequence before the credits.

First Bond film to end with the declaration "James Bond will return in ...", in this case it was Goldfinger (1964). A tradition that would continue until it was used for the last time at the end of A View to a Kill (1985).

One of the only Bond films to make direct reference to a previous film. Dr. No (1962) is mentioned by name, and Sylvia establishes that the film takes place six months after Dr. No (1962).

The helicopter (carrying director Terence Young during filming) crashed over water, trapping the director below the surface for a considerable time in an air bubble inside the copter's canopy. He was rescued and then immediately went back behind the camera with his arm in a sling.

The Lektor device (Spektor in the novel) was inspired by Ian Fleming's wartime work for the top secret Ultra Network, the group that cracked the German Enigma code during World War II.

Editor Peter Hunt assembled a preliminary version of the film for screening to executives at United Artists and decided that the film needed spicing up a bit - when Bond opens the briefcase supplied to him by Q, Hunt spliced in a dramatic shot of Dr No's base exploding from the previous film! Young was so amused by the trickery that he took a copy of Hunt's version and kept it. Happily, the sequence survived and was included in the Inside From Russia With Love [2000] documentary.

The actor appearing in the gun barrel sequence at the beginning of the film is actually stunt man Bob Simmons. The same gun barrel with Simmons was used for the first three Bond movies.

The unveiling of the SPECTRE agent playing James Bond in the teaser had to be reshot when Young felt that the extra playing the part looked a bit too much like Connery for comfort. Afraid that audiences might be confused by the unveiling, he reshot the scene with the extra now sporting a moustache.

SPECTRE's headquarters is 'played' by the main admin building at Pinewood Studios.

As an in-joke, title designer Robert Brownjohn and his cinematographer Frank Tidy plastered main unit director of photography Ted Moore's name all over the gyrating backside of Julie Mendez in the title sequence.

The moves in the chess game played by Kronsteen (Vladek Sheybal) are from the game played by Boris Spassky and David Bronstein at the USSR Championship in Leningrad in 1960.

In the books, Bond often drives his beloved Bentley. The car appears in this film for the only time in the regular series.

Bond's trick attaché case is the first true Bond film gadget. It is also one of the only gadgets to actually appear in Fleming's novels.

The collapsing rifle given to Bond isn't a gimmick, but was an Armalite AR-7 survival rifle which was a production item which actually does disassemble and fit into its stock. However it fires the .22 long rifle cartridge, not .25 caliber as was stated in the film. As of 2005, it is still in production, although not by Armalite. It is one of very few firearms that will float when dropped into water.

There was alleged to be some real friction between Beswick and on-screen adversary Aliza Gur. Young was apparently quite enamoured of Beswick which didn't sit too well with Gur - some of that gypsy fighting may not be as pretend as one might imagine!

Krilenko tries to escape through a secret window in a billboard advertising Call Me Bwana (1963), also produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman.

A scene was cut just before Bond meets Romanova on the ferry. Bond tries to lose his mysterious pursuer and hops into a taxi. Bond takes control of the taxi's brakes, causing the following Bulgarian to run into the back of the taxi as a third car joins the pile-up. The driver of the third car turns out to be Kerim Bey. When the angry Bulgarian protests to Bey, he is told "My friend, this is life" while Bond makes good his escape in the British Embassy's Rolls Royce. Young shot the scene ten times to get the long ash on Bey's cigar that actor Pedro Armendariz insisted on. It wasn't until a private screening week before the film's release that Young's twelve year old son spotted that the Bulgarian had in fact already been killed by Grant in the mosque! Exit one carefully crafted sequence...

The mosque where James Bond meets Tatiana is called the Hagia Sophia. It was originally a church that was converted to a Mosque in 1453. It is frequently featured in art history texts as an example of domed Basilica.

Muhammat Kohen, who appears briefly as the tour guide at Saint Sophis is a genuine tour guide at the mosque. Shooting was frequently interrupted when genuine tour groups invaded the location!

The picture on the wall of the lobby of the Russian embassy is that of Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

The wife of producer Harry Saltzman is leaning out the window of the Orient Express, next the window containing Robert Shaw, as it leaves the station.

Robert Shaw and Sean Connery did most of the fight on the train themselves.

During the helicopter sequence towards the end of the film, the inexperienced pilot flew too close to Sean Connery, almost killing him.

The footage of the exploding SPECTRE helicopter has since been recycled for a number of British TV shows as stock footage. It can be seen in the "Doctor Who" (1963) episode "The Daemons".

The manner of Bond's escape from the pursuing boats is similar to that which featured in an earlier Maibaum script, The Red Beret - in that film, a platoon of soldiers escape from a minefield by firing a rocket across the ground to clear a path through the mines. Here, Bond does something similar with a flare gun and barrels of gasoline.

The boat chase at the end of the movie, although supposed to be taking place in the Greek archipelago, was actually filmed in the West of Scotland. The pier James Bond takes off from is at Lunga House and the scene where the flaming barrels are thrown off the boat in Loch Craignish Ardfern, Argyll.

During the climactic gondola ride through Venice, a woman in a red dress can be seen standing on a bridge. This was the wife of director Terence Young.