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

12. “My Dear Colonel Boitier. I Don’t Think You Should Have Opened That Car Door By Yourself...”

Thunderball Domino
MGM/UA

The reason why SPECTRE Number Six, Colonel Jacques Boitier behaves so convincingly like a woman in the film’s pre-credits sequence is that he was!

For the initial sequences set in the chapel and at the Château d’Anet, the veiled Madame Boitier was portrayed by actress, Rose Alba. However, during the fight that follows, the SPECTRE agent was portrayed by regular Bond stuntman, Bob Simmons.

Simmons had portrayed Double-0 Seven himself in the gun barrel sequences that opened Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger. However, as Thunderball was filmed in Panavision, the scene was reshot with Sean Connery as Bond; every actor to portray Double-0 Seven has followed suit in the subsequent films.

Adding to the indignity of his encounter with Bond, Boitier was originally to have been throttled with his own brassiere, but this was vetoed in favour of his neck being broken with a fireplace poker. Similarly, when James Bond romances Domino under the waves, which was shot at Clifton Pier in New Providence, The Bahamas, Domino’s bra was to have floated to the surface, but Cubby Broccoli considered this to be too suggestive and the footage was removed.

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