20 Things You Didn’t Know About Thunderball (1965)

7. “Jettison Cocoon!”

Thunderball Domino
MGM/UA

Largo’s yacht, the Disco Volante (Italian for “The Flying Saucer”) was actually a hydrofoil called “The Flying Fish”. It serves as a floating base of operations for SPECTRE’s Number Two agent.

Ken Adam acquired it in Puerto Rico for $500,000 and it was refitted in Miami. Marine designers advised Adam that the Disco Volante's various functions in the script were impossible, particularly the notion of converting it from a yacht into a hydrofoil.

Nevertheless, Adam designed a catamaran section to be attached to the stern of The Flying Fish by slip bolts. This fifty-foot addition made the vessel look more like a yacht and added an exciting finale to the film when Largo jettisons it to escape from the US Navy when his plan to plant one of the bombs off the coast of Miami is foiled by Double-0 Seven and his allies.

The interiors were filmed on soundstages at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, including the bridge and the staterooms, whilst the underwater hatch was a combination of Pinewood and practical sets built in The Bahamas.

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