10 Stunts That Went Wrong In James Bond Films

By far and away one of the most spectacular stunts performed for a James Bond film occurred in the opening sequence of 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me. The setting is the edge of a clifftop which Bond casually skies towards while being pursued by skiing gunmen, before he nonchalantly skies off the mountain face.

As he plummets to the earth, Bond activates a parachute which reveals the Union Jack, as 007 cooly guides himself to ground level. The action sequence is a breathtaking start for what proved to be Roger Moore's finest effort in the role, leaving many a fan's jaw rightly dropped.

But the stunt nearly turned into a complete disaster, as the organisers of the stunt didn't take into account one important factor- gravity. As documented in the Bond 40th anniversary documentary, stuntman Rick Sylvester expertly planned a stunt that he had never tried before, personally choosing the location for the stunt in Austria.

After skiing off the mountain face, a mechanism was designed for the skis to become unattached, before Sylvester freefell some distance before opening up his parachute. One issue that incredibly hadn't been thought of was that while the parachute halted Sylvester's fall, it didn't halt the free falling skis! Thankfully the skis narrowly missed Sylvester and his parachute, falling harmlessly into the mountains below.

When one watches the opening scene with an eagle eye, it's evident just how close the stunt nearly went disastrously wrong, with the skis evidently in shot as it narrowly misses becoming entangled in the parachute. The near miss makes for a fascinating story and evidence of just how far stuntmen are willing to go for the sake of our entertainment.