20 Things You Didn't Know About Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
8. "Welcome To Hell, Blofeld!"
Originally, Diamonds Are Forever was a revenge film with Tracy Bond (Diana Rigg) being killed off in the pre-credits sequence. However, when George Lazenby resigned from the series, Tracy’s murder became the ending of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, staying loyal to Ian Fleming’s 1963 novel.
Nevertheless, even with Connery back as Bond, Diamonds Are Forever was intended to focus on Double-0 Seven’s revenge.
Originally, Blofeld escaped in his bathosub with James Bond pursuing him by weather balloon to a salt mine in Baja California whilst the CIA destroyed the oil rig with limpet mines.
Not unlike the ending to Get Carter (1971), Double-0 Seven would have chased Blofeld across the mounds of salt into a factory, where the villain would have tried to kill him in a salt granulator. However, when Blofeld climbed in to check that the spy was dead, Bond would escape and turn the machine back on, announcing to Felix Leiter and Willard Whyte that Blofeld was now "the salt of the earth" as red salt spayed out of the factory onto the beach.
The scene was scrapped because the owners of the salt mine would not grant permission to film there and the sequence drastically increased the film’s running time.