20 Things You Didn't Know About Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
5. “Who Is Your Floor?”
Diamonds Are Forever introduced camp and silly humour into the Bond films, but it also contains some genuinely tense moments.
When Peter Franks (Joe Robinson), the gem smuggler that Double-0 Seven is impersonating, escapes from custody, James Bond intercepts him at Tiffany Case’s apartment in Amsterdam. Posing as a doorman, Bond lulls Franks into a false sense of security and tries to incapacitate him before he can reach Tiffany, leading to a vicious fistfight inside the building’s ornate cage lift, which is wrecked in the scuffle.
Joe Robinson had taught Sean Connery judo and was recommended by the actor to portray Peter Franks which, sadly, was his last film role. He left the production once the fight was completed and Connery doubled for him in the scenes in which Franks's body is shown but his face is not.
The gripping fight sequence was choreographed by stunt arranger, Bob Simmons and stuntman, George Leech over a period of three weeks in a mock-up of the lift, and was performed by the combination of Simmons, Leech, Connery, and Robinson on film.
It is a close contender with the fight between Bond and Donald “Red” Grant (Robert Shaw) onboard the Orient Express in From Russia With Love for the best fight scene in the Bond franchise. Connery even quipped that the only thing that could top it would be a fight inside a telephone box!