20 Things You Didn’t Know About On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
3. “...Now It Belongs To The Count, Who Has Given It To Scientific Herself.”
Blofeld’s mountaintop eyrie, Piz Gloria was the most difficult location to find for OHMSS.
Harry Saltzman wanted to film inside France’s fortified Maginot Line, but a guided tour of the facility left Peter Hunt unimpressed, claiming that Syd Cain could easily and cost-effectively replicate it at Pinewood Studios.
Hunt was delighted when Hubert Fröehlich found the unfinished Schilthornbahn restaurant in the Bernese Alps above Mürren. However, the Swiss government declined the producers’ request to film there until Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli offered to finish the restaurant (which had been under construction since 1961), including adding a mechanism to allow it to rotate and a helicopter pad to aid in mountain rescues. Construction and renovation work began in spring 1968 with 500 tons of concrete being delivered to the Schilthornbahn for the helipad.
Although the restaurant, which is still named Piz Gloria after Blofeld’s lair in Fleming’s novel, has undergone further renovations over the years (for example, the helipad is now a viewing platform), it was completed for $60,000: a bargain when compared to the volcano in You Only Live Twice, which cost just over $1 million.