20 Things You Didn’t Know About You Only Live Twice (1967)

7. “Suggest She Be Accompanied By Her Father.”

Sean Connery James Bond You Only Live Twice
MGM

James Bond’s deceptively small autogyro, Little Nellie was not exactly a creation of Q Branch. In reality, it was the brainchild of RAF Wing Commander Ken Wallis who had developed the Wallis WA-116 Agile autogyro in the early 1960s.

Hearing about it on the radio, production designer Sir Ken Adam considered it to be a worthy and above-all different successor to the gadget-laden Aston Martin DB5 that had featured in Goldfinger and Thunderball. He arranged for one of Wallis's autogyros - a model registered as G-ARZB, but nicknamed “Little Nellie” after music hall entertainer, Nellie Wallace - to feature in the fifth Bond adventure.

Little Nellie was kitted out with gadgets by special effects supervisor, John Stears and shipped to Japan, where Wallis himself flew it, whilst Sean Connery filmed his scenes against a blue screen at Pinewood Studios.

Wallis logged 85 flights to capture the thrilling aerial sequence for You Only Live Twice.

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