For Your Eyes Only [1981]

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• In the movie, James Bond rejects Bibi's (played by Lynn-Holly Johnson) advances, presumably due to her being too young for him. Bond later has a relationship with Melina (played by Carole Bouquet). Melina is presumably much older than Bibi in the movie. In reality, the two actresses are only a year apart in age.
• Bond mentions a Chinese saying: "Before setting out for revenge, you first dig two graves". That particular quote is indeed Chinese and attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius.
• Carole Bouquet was dubbed. However, she dubbed herself in the French version.
• The character of Countess Lisl was played by Cassandra Harris who, at the time of filming, was married to future Bond actor Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan would be offered the part just five years later but be unable to appear as Bond in The Living Daylights due to [Remington Steele] commitments.
• A line of dialogue had to be cut from the opening helicopter sequence due to legal reasons involving ^[?] Kevin McClory. The bald man could not be called Blofeld as ^[?] Kevin McClory had won a court case some years previous and owned the rights to the use of SPECTRE and Blofeld. Disposing of Blofeld so early was producer Albert R. Broccoli's way of telling McClory that the success of 007 did not depend on him. McClory later released a rival [Bond] movie, Never Say Never Again, featuring the Blofeld character. Blofeld has not appeared in EON productions since this movie.
• The third consecutive [Bond] film where Bond's mission takes him to Italy. Bond wouldn't return there for another 25 years until Casino Royale.
• Steven Spielberg was very much interested in directing a [James Bond] film and did have talks with Albert R. Broccoli to direct this film, but Broccoli told him he only wanted British directors to helm the [Bond] series. Shortly afterwards George Lucas offered Spielberg an iconic hero of his own in the form of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• This was the first [Bond] film to be based on one of Ian Fleming's short stories (instead of one of his novels). Interestingly, there are several scenes in this film lifted from other Fleming tales. Examples: The assault on the smugglers' boat and warehouse is lifted intact from a short story entitled "Risico", and the sequence featuring Bond and Melina being dragged through the coral is actually lifted from the climax from the book, "Live and Let Die". The Identigraph appeared in slightly different form in the book, "Goldfinger".
• Julian Glover, who played Aristotle Kristatos, was a candidate to play James Bond in the sixties and was on the short-list as a possible replacement for Sean Connery and George Lazenby prior to the role going to Roger Moore.
• The previous [Bond] film, Moonraker, was a huge financial success but fans and critics complained that the series had become too focused on wild gadgets, outlandish plots, over-the-top villains and screwball comedy. As a result, producers decided to return to a more realistic storyline in 'For Your Eyes Only', using previous [Bond] films From Russia with Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service as models. Therefore, this film contains many story elements similar to those films; the ATAC is similar to the Lektor, Kriegler is similar to Grant, Columbo is similar to Kerim Bey and the winter sports sequences are similar to those in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
• The reason the underwater close-ups of Carole Bouquet had to be faked was that the actress had sinus trouble that made it impossible for her to dive or remain underwater.
• When Bibi flirts with Bond (Roger Moore), she states that Aristotle Kristatos (Julian Glover) is much older than Bond, and while Bibi pursues Bond, she later tells Kristatos that Kristatos is "too old for her". The Kristatos character is also a 1939-1945 War veteran. In fact, Glover was born in 1935 and is eight years younger than Moore.
• First and only [Bond] film in the official series not to feature the M character. It was the first [Bond] film not to feature Bernard Lee as M, who had played the role in the previous eleven films in the series. Lee died of stomach cancer on January 16, 1981, after the filming of "For Your Eyes Only" had started but before his scenes were shot. Although Bernard Lee was dying of stomach cancer, he did try to film at least one scene in the movie, but in the end it was too much for him and he had to bow out. He died not long after. As a result, Q's role in the film was slightly expanded to fill the gap. As such, a number of scenes originally intended to include M were re-written with Q, e.g. the confessional scene. As a mark of respect, producer Albert R. Broccoli refused to recast the role, changing the script to say that M was on leave. The tele-movie Climax!: Casino Royale (1954) also did not feature the M character.
• Roger Moore was not happy about the scene where he cold-bloodedly kills Locque by pushing his teetering car off a cliff. Although Moore acknowledged that this was a Bond thing to do, he didn't feel that it was a Roger Moore Bond thing to do.