You Only Live Twice is a 1967spy film and the fifth film in theJames Bond series produced byEon Productions. The film's screenplay was written byRoald Dahl, and was loosely based onIan Fleming's 1964 novelYou Only Live Twice. It is the first of threeBond films to be directed byLewis Gilbert, and is the firstBond film to discard most of Fleming's plot, using only a few characters and locations from the book as the background for an entirely new story.
You Only Live Twice starsSean Connery as the fictionalMI6 agentJames Bond, who is dispatched toJapan after American and Soviet spacecraft vanish mysteriously, each nation blaming the other amidst theCold War. Bond travels to a remote island to find the perpetrators, and comes face-to-face withErnst Stavro Blofeld, the head ofSPECTRE, an organisation that is working for the government of an unnamed Asian power, implied to beChina, to provoke war between the United States and the Soviet Union.[4][5] Although the character Blofeld played a role in previous films,You Only Live Twice is the first film to depict him visually.
During the filming in Japan, it was announced that Sean Connery would leave the role of Bond, but after one film's absence, he returned in 1971'sDiamonds Are Forever and later in 1983's non-Eon Bond filmNever Say Never Again.You Only Live Twice received positive reviews and grossed over $111 million (equivalent to $1 billion in 2024) in worldwide box office. However, it was the firstBond film to see a decline in box-office revenue, primarily owing to the oversaturation of the spy film genre fromBond imitators, including a competingBond film,Casino Royale, fromColumbia Pictures (1967). TheBond series continued withOn Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969, the first film without Sean Connery in the lead role.
AmericanNASAspacecraftJupiter 16 is hijacked from orbit by an unidentified spaceship. The United States suspects theSoviet Union, but the British suspect Japanese involvement since the spacecraft landed in theSea of Japan. To investigate,MI6 operativeJames Bond is sent to Tokyo, after faking his own death in Hong Kong and beingburied at sea fromHMS Tenby.
While attending asumo tournament, Bond is approached by female Japanese secret service agentAki, who takes him to meet local MI6 operative Dikko Henderson. Henderson claims to have critical evidence about the spacecraft, but a hitman kills Henderson before he can elaborate. Bond kills the assailant, taking his clothing as a disguise, and is driven in the getaway car to Osato Chemicals. Once there, Bond subdues the driver and breaks into the office safe of the company's president, Mr. Osato. After obtaining secret documents, Bond is pursued by security and rescued by Aki, who flees to a secluded subway station. Bond chases her, but falls through a trap door leading to the office of the head of the Japanese secret service,Tiger Tanaka. The documents include a photograph of the cargo shipNing-Po, with amicrodot message saying the tourist who took the photo was killed as a security precaution.
Bond, masquerading as a potential buyer, returns to Osato Chemicals. He briefly meets with Osato, who orders his secretary, Helga Brandt, to kill Bond; both areSPECTRE agents. Once outside, assassins open fire on Bond before Aki rescues him. They drive toKobe, where theNing-Po is docked. They learn the ship was delivering elements forrocket fuel. After being discovered, Bond eludes the henchmen while Aki escapes. Bond is captured and awakens in Brandt's cabin on theNing-Po. Brandt interrogates Bond, before seducing him. Brandt flies Bond to Tokyo the next day, but en route, she sets off a flare inside the plane, seals Bond in his seat, and bails out. Bond however, manages to land the plane and flees before it explodes.
Bond discovers where theNing-Po unloaded. He flies over the area in an armedautogyro created byQ. Near avolcano, Bond is attacked by and destroys four helicopters, confirming his suspicions of a nearby base. A Soviet spacecraft is captured in orbit by another unidentified craft, heightening tensions with the United States. The mysterious spaceship lands in a base hidden inside the volcano, operated byErnst Stavro Blofeld of SPECTRE, who has been hired by agreat power to start a Soviet-American war. Blofeld summons Osato and Brandt to his quarters for not having killed Bond; Osato blames Brandt, and Blofeld drops her into a pool filled withpiranhas.
In Kyoto, Bond prepares to conduct a closer investigation of the island by training with Tanaka's ninjas and donning a Japanese disguise, which will include a staged marriage to anAma diver, performed by an agent known on the island. While still in Kyoto, Aki is killed when she is poisoned in her sleep by a SPECTRE agent targeting Bond, who is asleep next to her.
Bond is introduced to Tanaka's student,Kissy Suzuki, who will perform the role of his wife. Acting on a lead, the pair reconnoitre a cave booby-trapped with phosgene gas, which leads to the volcano with the secret rocket base. Bond slips inside while Kissy goes to alert Tanaka. Bond locates and frees the captured American and Soviet astronauts and, with their help, steals aspace suit to infiltrate the SPECTRE spacecraft,Bird One. However, Blofeld spots Bond, who is detained whileBird One is launched. Bond is taken into the control room, where he meets Blofeld.
Bird One closes in on an American space capsule, and U.S. forces prepare to launch a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Tanaka's ninjas approach the base's entrance, but are detected and fired upon. Bond distracts Blofeld and lets in the ninjas. Blofeld kills Osato for his failure to eliminate Bond and prepares to execute Bond as well, but is stopped by Tanaka and flees. Bond fights his way back to the control room, kills Blofeld's bodyguard Hans, and activatesBird One'sself-destruct before it reaches the American capsule. As the Americans stand down their forces, Blofeld activates the base's self-destruct system and escapes. Bond, Kissy, Tanaka, and the surviving ninjas leave before the eruption destroys the base, and are picked up by theJapanese Maritime Forces and the British Secret Service.
Aki'sToyota 2000GT Open-Top was ranked as the seventh best car in theJames Bond series byComplex in 2011.[6]
On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the intended next film afterThunderball (1965), but the producers decided to adaptYou Only Live Twice instead becauseOHMSS would require searching for high and snowy locations.[7]Lewis Gilbert originally declined the offer to direct, but accepted after producerAlbert R. Broccoli called him saying: "You can't give up this job. It's the largest audience in the world."Peter R. Hunt, who edited the first five Bond films, recalled the producers had contracts with several directors, and Gilbert was simply assigned to the film.[8]Ted Moore, the director of photography on the first four films, was unavailable because he was filmingA Man for All Seasons and was replaced byFreddie Young.[9]
Gilbert, Young, producers Broccoli andHarry Saltzman, and production designerKen Adam then went to Japan, spending three weeks searching for locations.SPECTRE's shore fortress headquarters was changed to an extinct volcano after the team learned that the Japanese do not build castles by the sea. The group was due to return to the UK on aBOACBoeing 707 flight (BOAC Flight 911) on 5 March 1966, but cancelled after being told they had a chance to watch aninja demonstration.[7] That flight crashed 25 minutes after takeoff, killing all on board.[10] In Tokyo, the crew also found Hunt, who decided to go on holiday after having his request to direct declined. Hunt was invited to direct thesecond unit forYou Only Live Twice and accepted the job.[11]
Unlike most James Bond films, which usually feature various locations around the world, almost the entire film is set in one country, and several minutes are devoted to an elaborate Japanese wedding. This is in keeping with Fleming's original novel, which also devoted a number of pages to the discussion of Japanese culture.Toho Studios provided soundstages, personnel, and the female Japanese stars to the producers.[12]
The first draft was written bySydney Boehm based closely on the original novel.[9] The producers hadHarold Jack Bloom come to Japan with them to write a screenplay. His work was ultimately rejected, but since several of his ideas were used in the final script, he was given the credit of "Additional Story Material".[13] Among these elements were the opening with Bond's fake death and burial at sea, and the ninja attack.[14] As the screenwriter of the previous Bond films,Richard Maibaum, was unavailable,Roald Dahl (a close friend of Ian Fleming) was chosen to write the adaptation, despite having no prior experience writing a screenplay except for the uncompletedThe Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling.[7]
Dahl said that the original novel was "Fleming's worst book, with no plot in it which would even make a movie",[14] and compared it to atravelogue,[15] stating that he had to create a new plot though "I could retain only four or five of the original story's ideas."[16] On creating the plot, Dahl said he "did not know what the hell Bond was going to do" despite having to deliver the first draft in six weeks, and decided to do a basic plot similar toDr. No.[14] He was inspired by the story of a missingnuclear-armedU.S. Air Forcebomber overSpain and by the Soviet Union and the United States' recent firstspacewalks fromVoskhod 2 andGemini 4.[9] Dahl was given a free rein on his script, except for the character of Bond and "the girl formula", involving three women for Bond to seduce – an ally and a henchwoman who both get killed, and the main Bond girl. While the third involved a character from the book, Kissy Suzuki, Dahl had to create Aki and Helga Brandt to fulfil the rest.[17]
Gilbert was mostly collaborative with Dahl's work, as the writer declared: "He not only helped in script conferences, but had some good ideas and then left you alone, and when you produced the finished thing, he shot it. Other directors have such an ego that they want to rewrite it and put their own dialogue in, and it's usually disastrous. What I admired so much about Lewis Gilbert was that he just took the screenplay and shot it. That's the way to direct: You either trust your writer or you don't."[14]
When the time came to beginYou Only Live Twice, the producers were faced with the problem of a disenchanted star. Sean Connery had stated that he was tired of playing James Bond and all of the associated commitment (time spent filming and publicising each movie), together with finding it difficult to do other work, which would potentially lead totypecasting.[13][18] Saltzman and Broccoli were able to persuade Connery by increasing his fee for the film, but geared up to look for a replacement.
Jan Werich was originally cast by producerHarry Saltzman to play Blofeld. Upon his arrival at thePinewood set, both producerAlbert R. Broccoli and directorLewis Gilbert felt that he was a poor choice, resembling a "poor, benevolentFather Christmas". Nonetheless, in an attempt to make the casting work, Gilbert continued filming. After several days, both Gilbert and Broccoli determined that Werich was not menacing enough, and recast Blofeld withDonald Pleasence in the role.[7] Pleasence's ideas for Blofeld's appearance included ahump, a limp, a beard, and a lame hand, before he settled on the scar.[19] He found it uncomfortable, though, because of the glue that attached it to his eye.[20]Helmut Qualtinger was also considered for the role of Blofeld.[21]
Many European models were tested for Helga Brandt, including German actressEva Renzi who passed on the film,[22] with German actressKarin Dor being cast. Dor performed the stunt of falling into a pool to depict Helga's demise, without the use of a double.[23] Dor was dubbed by a different actress for the German release.[24]
ActressTsai Chin played Ling, the Bond Girl who helped fake Bond's death. She would appear as Madame Wu in the 2006 James Bond thrillerCasino Royale.
UA CEO Bud Ornstein met withToshiro Mifune in theCanary Islands to try to convince him to play Tiger Tanaka, but he was already committed to appear inGrand Prix.[9] Gilbert had chosenTetsurō Tamba after working with him inThe 7th Dawn. A number of martial arts experts were hired as the ninjas. The two Japanese female parts proved difficult to cast, due to most of the actresses tested having little English.Akiko Wakabayashi andMie Hama, bothToho Studios stars, were eventually chosen and started takingEnglish classes in the UK. Hama, initially cast in the role of Tanaka's assistant, had difficulty with the language. Initially the producers were going to fire her, but after Tamba suggested she would commit suicide if they did so instead switched her role with Wakabayashi, who had been cast as Kissy, a part with less dialogue. Wakabayashi only requested that her character name, "Suki", be changed to "Aki".[7]
The New Otani Hotel in 2019.TheLittle NellieWA-116autogyro with its constructor and pilot,Ken WallisThe scene of the Japanese fishing villageMountShinmoedake in 1998 (the crater was filled by an eruption in 2011)
Filming ofYou Only Live Twice lasted from July 1966 to March 1967.[25]
The film was shot primarily in Japan, and most of the locations are identifiable.
In summary:
Tokyo: After arriving in Japan at Akime, Bond goes to Tokyo. The initial scenes are set in and around theGinza area. TheHotel New Otani Tokyo served as the outside for Osato Chemicals, and the hotel's gardens were used for scenes of theninja training. A car chase using theToyota 2000GT and aToyota Crown was largely filmed in the area around theOlympic Stadium used previously for the1964 Summer Olympics.Tokyo Tower and the centre of Tokyo can be briefly seen in a sequence where the villains' car is dropped in Tokyo Bay. Tanaka's private subway station was filmed at theTokyo Metro'sNakano-shimbashi Station. A sumo wrestling match was filmed at Tokyo's sumo hall, theKuramae Kokugikan; this has since been demolished.
Kobe Docks appears in a sequence when Bond investigates the shipNing-Po, and is involved in a fight.
Bond's wedding at a Shinto shrine was filmed inNachi.
Most of the interiors were shot at Pinewood. The opening sequence in Hong Kong used some location footage of a street inKowloon. Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour is also shown, but the at-sea burial of Bond and the retrieval of the corpse was filmed off Gibraltar and the Bahamas. The scenes with the light aircraft ferrying Bond to his supposed death were shot over very English-looking countryside in Buckinghamshire, whereas this was supposed to be Japan.[citation needed]
Large crowds were present in Japan to see the shooting. A Japanese fan began following Sean Connery with a camera, and police had to deal with fan incursions several times during shooting.[7][20]
The heavily armedWA-116autogyro "Little Nellie" was included after Ken Adam heard a radio interview with its inventor,RAF Wing CommanderKen Wallis. Little Nellie was named after music hall starNellie Wallace, who has a similar surname to its inventor. Wallis piloted his invention, which was equipped with various mock-up armaments byJohn Stears' special effects team, during production.[25]
"Nellie"'s battle with helicopters proved to be difficult to film. The scenes were initially shot inMiyazaki, first with takes of the gyrocopter, with more than 85 take-offs, five hours of flight and Wallis nearly crashing into the camera several times. A scene filming the helicopters from above created a majordowndraft, and cameraman John Jordan's foot was severed by the craft's rotor. It was surgically reattached by surgeons visiting the country, and then amputated in London when the surgery was deemed to have been flawed.[28] Jordan would continue work for the Bond series with a prosthetic foot. The concluding shots involved explosions, which the Japanese government did not allow in a national park; hence, the crew moved toTorremolinos, Spain, which was found to resemble the Japanese landscape.[7] The shots of the volcano were filmed atShinmoedake onKyushu Island.[29]
The sets of SPECTRE's volcano base, including operative heliport and monorail, were constructed at a lot insidePinewood Studios, at a cost of $1 million.[7][26] The 45 m (148 ft) tall set could be seen from 5 kilometres (3 miles) away, and attracted many people from the region.[30] Locations outside Japan included using theRoyal Navy frigateHMS Tenby, then inGibraltar, for the sea burial,[31] Hong Kong for the scene where Bond fakes his death, and Norway for the Soviet radar station.[7][27][30]
Sean Connery's then-wifeDiane Cilento performed the swimming scenes for at least five Japanese actresses, including Mie Hama.[7] Martial arts expertDonn F. Draeger provided martial arts training, and also doubled for Connery.[32] Lewis Gilbert's regular editor,Thelma Connell, was originally hired to edit the film. However, after her initial, almost three-hour cut received a terrible response from test audiences, Peter R. Hunt was asked to re-edit the film. Hunt's cut proved a much greater success, and he was awarded the director's chair on the next film as a result.[13]
The soundtrack was the fourth of the series to be composed byJohn Barry. He tried to incorporate the "elegance of the Oriental sound" with Japanese music-inspired tracks.[33] The theme song, "You Only Live Twice", was composed by Barry and lyricistLeslie Bricusse, and sung byNancy Sinatra after her fatherFrank Sinatra passed on the opportunity.[34] Nancy Sinatra was reported to be very nervous while recording – first she wanted to leave the studio; then she claimed to sometimes "sound likeMinnie Mouse".[35] Barry declared that the final song uses 25 different takes.
There are two versions of the song "You Only Live Twice", sung by Nancy Sinatra, one directly from the movie soundtrack, and a second one for record release arranged byBilly Strange.[citation needed] The movie soundtrack song is widely recognised for its striking opening bars and oriental flavour, and was far more popular on radio. The record release reached No. 44 on theBillboard charts in the US, and No. 11 in the UK. Both versions of the title song are available on CD.
A different title song was originally recorded byJulie Rogers, but eventually discarded.[34] Only two lines from that version were kept in the final lyrics, and the orchestral part was changed to fit Sinatra's vocal range. Rogers' version only appeared in aJames Bond 30th Anniversary CD, with no singer credit.[36][37][38] In the 1990s, an alternative example of a possible theme song (also called "You Only Live Twice" and sung byLorraine Chandler) was discovered in the vaults ofRCA Records. It became a very popular track with followers of theNorthern soul scene (Chandler was well known for her high-quality soul output on RCA) and can be found on several RCA soul compilations.[39]
Original theatrical trailer forYou Only Live Twice.
To promote the film,United Artists Television produced a one-hour colour television programme titledWelcome to Japan, Mr. Bond, which first aired on 2 June 1967 in the United States onNBC.[40] Bond regulars Lois Maxwell and Desmond Llewelyn appeared, playing respectively Miss Moneypenny and Q.Kate O'Mara appears as Miss Moneypenny's assistant.[41] The programme shows clips fromYou Only Live Twice and the then four existing Bond films, and contained a storyline of Moneypenny trying to establish the identity of Bond's bride.[42]
You Only Live Twice premiered at theOdeon Leicester Square in London on 12 June 1967, with QueenElizabeth II in attendance.[43] The film opened the following day in the United Kingdom and United States, set an opening day record at the Odeon Leicester Square, and went to number one in the United States with a weekend gross of $600,000.[43] It grossed $7 million from 161 theatres in the United States in its first three weeks,[43] and was number one for seven weeks.[44] The film grossed $43 million in the United States and over $68 million worldwide.[45]
Apart from the film reception, the title sequence of the film received praise with criticPauline Kael mentioning that it had an unexpected element, that of "finding death in space lyrical."[46]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times awarded the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, in which he criticised the focus on gadgets, declaring "the formula fails to work its magic. Like its predecessorThunderball, another below-par entry, this one is top-heavy with gadgets but weak on plotting and getting everything to work at the same time."[47]Bosley Crowther, reviewing forThe New York Times, felt "there's enough of the bright and bland bravado of the popular British super-sleuth mixed into this melee of rocket-launching to make it a bag of good Bond fun. And there's so much of that scientific clatter – so much warring of super-capsules out in space and fussing with electronic gadgets in a great secret underground launching pad – that this way out adventure picture should be the joy and delight of the youngsters and give pleasure to the reasonable adults who can find release in the majestically absurd."[48]Charles Champlin of theLos Angeles Times wrote the film was "a fast, funny, no-holds-barred piece of outrageous nonsense."[49]
Variety stated more positively: "As entertainment [You Only Live Twice] compares favourably in quality and is replete with as many fights, gadgets, and beauties as its predecessors".[50]Time magazine was sharply critical of the film, claiming the franchise had become "the victim of the same misfortune that once befellFrankenstein: there have been so many flamboyant imitations that the original looks like a copy." The review later derided that "the effects are ineffective. The outer-space sequences would be more appropriate in a grade school educational short entitled Our Amazing Universe, and the volcanic climax is a series of clumsy process shots that no one took the trouble to fix. Even Connery seems uncomfortable and fatigued..."[51] Clifford Terry of theChicago Tribune remarked that "a large percentage ofYou Only Live Twice is disappointing, lacking the wit and zip, the pacing and punch, of its predecessors, especially the first three. Roald Dahl's script is larded with sex-slanted jokes that are either pathetically feeble or sophomorically coarse, Bond's patented puns are punier and even Connery's enthusiasm for his shrewd, suave, and sensual character seems to have waned."[52]
On thereview aggregation websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 74% based on 53 reviews with an average rating of 6.71/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "With exotic locales, impressive special effects, and a worthy central villain,You Only Live Twice overcomes a messy and implausible story to deliver another memorable early Bond flick."[53]James Berardinelli ofReelViews said that the first half was good, but "It's only during the second half, as the plot escalates beyond the bounds of preposterousness, that the film starts to fragment", criticising Blofeld's appearance and stating "rockets that swallow up spacecraft are a bit too extravagant."[54] Ali Barclay ofBBC Films lightly criticized Dahl's script, writing that Dahl had "clearly helped thrust Bond into a whole new world of villainy and technology, maybe his concepts were slightly ahead of themselves, or maybe he just tried too hard."[55] Leo Goldsmith lauded the volcano base as "the most impressive of Ken Adam's sets for the franchise."[56]Danny Peary wrote thatYou Only Live Twice "should have been about twenty minutes shorter" and described it as "not a bad Bond film, but it doesn't compare to its predecessors – the formula had become a little stale."[57]
Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington, in their 2002 retrospective,Bond Films, judged Ken Adam's production design "astonishing".[58] They conclude: "You Only Live Twice is a loving tribute to the idea that nothing succeeds like excess. ... It's more Fleming pastiche than actual Fleming, with elements of previous Eon Bond films sprinkled through a mechanical (yet inspired) screenplay. ... This is pop art, delivered with punch and panache."[59]
IGN rankedYou Only Live Twice as the fourth-bestBond film,[60] andEntertainment Weekly as the second-best, considering that it "pushes the series to the outer edge of coolness".[61] However, Norman Wilner ofMSN chose it as the fifth-worst, criticising the plot, action scenes and lack of screentime for Blofeld.[62] Literary critic Paul Simpson called the film one of the most colourful of the series and credited the prefecture ofKagoshima for adding "a good flavour" of Japanese influence on the film,[63] but he panned the depiction of Blofeld as a "let-down", "small, bald and a whooping scar".[64] Simon Winder said that the film is "perfect" for parodies of the series.[65]John Brosnan, in his bookJames Bond in the Cinema, compared the film to an episode ofThunderbirds due to its reliance on gadgetry, but he admitted it had pace and spectacle.Christopher Null considered the film to be one of James Bond's most memorable adventures but that the plot was "protracting and quite confusing".[66]
^abcdField, Matthew (2015).Some kind of hero : 007 : the remarkable story of the James Bond films. Ajay Chowdhury. Stroud, Gloucestershire.ISBN978-0-7509-6421-0.OCLC930556527.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Terry, Clifford (18 June 1967)."Budget Goes Up in Bond Venture".Chicago Tribune. Section 2, p. 22.Archived from the original on 28 January 2021. Retrieved29 April 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
^Winder, Simon (2007).The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond (reprint ed.). Picador. p. 226.ISBN978-0-312-42666-8.
