20 Things You Didn’t Know About On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
7. “Good Morning! My Name’s Bond, James Bond.”
When Peter Hunt found Praia de Guincho, a beach with a dangerous undertow near Estoril, Portugal, he knew that he had found the dramatic backdrop for Tracy’s suicide attempt and Bond’s fight with Draco’s men in the film’s pre-credits sequence. George Leech used the various boats, oars, and fishing nets on the beach as part of the fight.
George Lazenby and Terence Mountain (who portrayed Draco’s henchman, Raphael) rehearsed the fight with Leech. However, Greek actor, Takis Emmanuel, who had portrayed Draco’s thug, Klett in the previously-filmed wedding scenes, declined to rehearse, so Leech replaced him with stuntman, Bill Morgan.
The brutal fight was designed to silence those who claimed that only Sean Connery could play Double-0 Seven. Nevertheless, Hunt had to bribe Lazenby and Mountain with bottles of fine Portuguese brandy to keep re-entering the freezing Atlantic Ocean whilst filming their onscreen battle.
Moreover, whilst James Bond’s Aston Martin DBS made it down onto the beach unaided, Syd Cain laid railway sleepers under the sand to assist the grip of its tyres when Tracy drove it back onto the road.