20 Things You Didn't Know About Dr. No
18. Sean's Fear
The sequence in which James Bond is threatened by a tarantula crawling up his body whilst he is asleep in his Kingston hotel room was the first of many inventive death traps in the Bond films. In the original novel, Ian Fleming had Double-0 Seven being terrorised by a poisonous centipede, but a tarantula was much more visual on film.
Problematically, Sir Sean Connery had a fear of spiders (particularly the big, hairy kind).
Even though production designer, Sir Ken Adam placed a piece of Perspex over Connery so that the arachnid could climb up that instead, the glare of the studio lights on the barrier kept showing up, so it was removed.
Instead, the scene was shot with a combination of Connery for close-ups and stunt coordinator, Bob Simmons. No doubt, Sir Sean was very keen to get out of that bed at the end of the day's filming!