Trivia for
Octopussy (1983) More at IMDbPro »

• When Bond bends metal bars surrounding a window after weakening them with acid, a brief musical quote of the theme from Superman (1978) can be heard.
  
  
• Maud Adams previously appeared (and was killed) in another James Bond film (The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)).
  
  
• The French TV hosts Igor Bogdanoff and Grichka Bogdanoff were first approached for the parts of the knife-throwing twin assassins Mischka and Grischka.
  
  
• The elephant hunt sequence had its origins in the The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). Producer Harry Saltzman had wanted an elephant stampede in the movie so Bond and Scaramanga could chase each other on elephant back. The rest of the creative team balked at the idea, but Saltzman went to see an elephant trainer. It turns out that elephants need a special shoe on their feet to protect them from rough surfaces when they work. A few months later, while filming in Thailand, Albert R. Broccoli got a call saying his elephant shoes were ready. Harry Saltzman had apparently ordered about 2,600 pairs of them. The sequence did not end up being in "The Man with the Golden Gun" and the man who made the shoes did not get paid. As of 1990, EON Productions allegedly still owed him.
  
  
• Roger Moore originally intended to retire after this movie, since he was 55 at the time of filming, but ended up coming back to do one more in the series, A View to a Kill (1985). During casting, James Brolin was almost given the role of James Bond when at the last minute, Roger Moore agreed to play Bond again. Brolin's screen tests can be seen on the DVD. Moore had gone out of contract after For Your Eyes Only (1981). The production went with Moore because the film would be competing with Never Say Never Again (1983) starring original and former James Bond actor and legend Sean Connery. The uncertainty in using an American actor in the role and having to introduce a new actor in going-up against Connery were the reasons. In the meantime, Oliver Tobias, Michael Billington, Timothy Dalton and Ian Ogilvy had also been considered for James Bond.
  
  
• Released in the same year as the rival James Bond production Never Say Never Again (1983) which showcased the return of Sean Connery to the role. "Octopussy" made $187 million worldwide, "Never Say Never Again" $160 million.
  
  
• 13th James Bond movie in the Eon Productions series and the sixth to star Roger Moore as James Bond. With this movie, Moore equaled the number of James Bond movies that original James Bond Sean Connery had made in the official series.
  
  
• Because of this hotel's involvement with this movie, Udaipur's Lake Palace Hotel is now nicknamed "The Octopussy Hotel".
  
  
• A March 2001 article in the British newspaper "The Guardian" reported that this movie was still shown nightly in town at Udaipur.
  
  
• Permission to shoot in the region of Udaipur had to be sought and granted from the reigning Royal Maharana Bagwat Singh. He would frequently entertain the A-list of the cast and crew at dinners during production where they would be served specially made Rose Wine.
  
  
• Many production and story ideas and elements not used in the movie Moonraker (1979) ended up being utilized for this film. These included the knife throwing twins, the casting of 'Louis Jourdan (I)' as the villain and the Acrostar Bede jet sequence. The backgammon game was originally intended to take place in Max Kalba's club in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
  
  
• The movie had an boy's own adventure theme inspired due to the box office success of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Similary, the elephant hunt sequence was inspired by the Richard Connell novel and movie of The Most Dangerous Game (1932).
  
  
• Last Bond film to reveal the name of the next Bond film during the end credits.
  
  
• A video game called "James Bond as seen in Octopussy" was developed by Capcom and Parker Brothers for the this film in 1984. It was designed for the Atari 2600/5600, Commodore 64 and ColecoVision platforms but was never released. If it had been, it would have been the first ever James Bond video game with an associated title with that of an actual James Bond film. This would not happen until the next movie in the franchise, A View to a Kill (1985).
  
  
• Andy Bradford who plays 009 in this movie was also one of Kristato's henchman in For Your Eyes Only (1981). Albert Moses, who plays Sadruddin, Head of Station I in Udaipur in this film was also a bartender in Max Kalba's bar in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
  
  
• The literal translations of some of this film's foreign language titles include 007 Against Octopussy (Brazil and Portugal); Octopus (Finland); Operation Octopus (Italy) and 007 Averts The Plot (China)
  
  
• On the DVD Ultimate Edition, Director John Glen comments he picked up Paul Hardwick for the role of the "Soviet Chairman" because he was a Brezhnev's lookalike. The same thing had happened in For Your Eyes Only (1981), with Janet Brown and John Wells impersonating the Thatchers: Margaret Thatcher and Denis Thatcher.
  
  
• Graffitti written in green color by an unknown person/agent(s) on the Berlin Wall seen after production wrapped read: "007 WAS HERE OCTOPUSSY".
  
  
• Whilst traveling on a plane between England and India in August 1982, Production Designer Peter Lamont was on a plane which was hijacked.
  
  
• The film's main title song "All Time High" sung by Rita Coolidge made it to the Top 40 in the USA charts. There it charted on 2 July 1983 and went to No. #36. But the song went to the No. #1 spot on the US Billboard Adult Contemporary Charts. A cover version of the song performed by Pulp can be heard on the David Arnold Bond song compilation album, "Shaken and Stirred: the David Arnold James Bond Project". Pulp once wrote a song for Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) which was not used for that movie.
  
  
• This is the only James Bond movie in the EON Productions official spy genre series that features the famous East Berlin - West Berlin Cold War crossing point Checkpoint Charlie.
  
  
• The Soviet Chairman was made-up and cast with an actor (Paul Hardwick) in order to resemble Leonid Brezhnev. Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1964 to 1982, the latter year being when this movie was made. This was also Hardwick's final film.
  
  
• To date (2007) this is the only movie in the official James Bond series to feature a woman's name i.e. Octopussy (Maud Adams) as the title of the film.
  
  
• Octopussy is the daughter of Major Dexter Smythe, who was allowed by James Bond to commit suicide rather than be captured when his crimes of embezzlement and murder were discovered. This is the only reference to Ian Fleming's original short story "Octopussy" in the movie. The Sotheby's auction scene comes from the Ian Fleming story "Property of a Lady." The scene of 009 trying to escape East Germany is an allusion to Fleming's "Living Daylights." The line 'Spend the money quickly, Mr Bond' spoken by a villain who loses to Bond at a gambling table, is paraphrased from the Moonraker novel.
  
  
• An octopus is said to have inspired the title of the original Octopussy short story. Octopussy was also the name of a coracle given to Ian Fleming by friend, neighbor and lover Blanche Blackwell as a present for staying at Goldeneye. Ian Fleming derived the "Pussy" name itself from agent Pussy Deakin aka Livia Stela. The Octopussy name specifically is said to have been named after Fleming's pet octopus. Ian Fleming based the character of Pussy Galore in the novel (and later film) Goldfinger (1964) on Blanche Blackwell.
  
  
• The "Octopussy" short story was first published in Playboy Magazine being serialized two years after Fleming's death in the March and April 1966 editions. It was also the final James Bond short story written by Ian Fleming.
  
  
• Product placements, brand integrations and promotional tie-ins for this movie include Land Rover; Mont Blanc Pens; Seiko Watches including the Seiko TV and G757 Sports 100 watches; Enco (ExxonMobil); and Alfa Romeo, Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes cars.
  
  
• Octopussy's bed was designed in the shape of an octopus by Peter Lamont.
  
  
• The key image of this movie's poster had Octopussy entangling James Bond with eight arms as if they were eight tentacles. Each hand and arm was positioned in a different position around James Bond's tuxedo. The eight positions included an arm and hand doing the following: (1) Holding the Fabergé Egg (2) Grasping his gun (3) Holding a martini glass (4) Touching the back of his neck and left ear (5) Stroking his bow-tie (6) Pinching his coat button (7) Holding a knife and (8) Stroking the shirt on his chest.
  
  
• The black and white Octopus signia was a symbol of SPECTRE, the criminal spy organization seen in other James Bond movies. However, in both the short story and movie Octopussy (1983) it has no connection to either story. Even if the producers had wanted to resurrect the Octopus symbol for this movie, the legal settlement with Kevin McClory gave him all the rights to the use of SPECTRE and as such the black-and-white octopus signia could not have been used in this movie. The type of octopus seen on the Octopussy girls' bodies was different: it was a blue ringed octopus. In the movie, this symbol was a sign of an old secret order of female bandits and smugglers.
  
  
• One of Ian Fleming's James Bond source short stories for this movie, "The Property of a Lady" was set in Sotheby's auction house both in the book and film. The story was once published in their trade journal "The Ivory Hammer". Ironically though, the two largest auctions of James Bond memorabilia ever held, on 17 September 1998 and 14 February 2001, were actually conducted by rival house Christies.
  
  
• A hand with a pair of eights in the card game Texas Hold 'Em Poker is called an "Octopussy". A hand with a pair of eights is actually seen in the later James Bond movie Casino Royale (2006) in which this card game is a major feature.
  
  
• The film's "All Time High" main title song sung by Rita Coolidge is the first Bond theme song not to feature the title of the movie anywhere in its lyrics. Casino Royale (2006)'s "You Know My Name" by Chris Cornell is the second whilst the Jack White and Alicia Keys' song "Another Way To Die" from Quantum of Solace (2008) is the third.
  
  
• Vehicles featured included an Acrostar Mini Jet aka a Bede Jet; yellow and black three-wheeled Indian Auto Rickshaw Tuk-Tuk Company Taxis; a dark gray metallic Alfa Romeo GTV 6 Quadrifoglio; a white Volkswagen Beetle or VW bug; various Mercedes makes including a black Mercedes-Benz 250 SE, Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman and Mercedes-Benz 240D; Kamal Khan's black Rolls Royce Phantom III car and private Beechcraft C-45 'Twin Beech' (twin-engine) Beech 18 airplane; Q's Hot Air Balloon; a one-person Crocodile water-vessel; five BMW 5 series sedans and a BMW motorcycle for the West German police vehicles; Octopussy's S-class steam Circus Train; Octopussy's ten-crewed lake barge; a Range Rover convertible; Army Truck and Willys jeep; GAZ-24 Volga driven by General Orlov when chasing Bond; and Aerospatiale SA 316B III Alouette and Aerospatiale SA-365C helicopters.
  
  
• The buzz saw yo-yo was an idea conceived by writer George MacDonald Fraser.
  
  
• The Acrostar Jet was 12 feet long with a single micro-turbo jet engine TRS-18. It could fly at 160 mph and soar at 310 mph and reach 30,000 feet with a climbing rate of 2500 feet per minute. It was piloted and owned by J.W. 'Corkey' Fornof of Louisiana who had been an uncredited aviation consultant on Moonraker (1979) and also worked on Licence to Kill (1989) as a pilot.
  
  
• First James Bond movie to be released with the MGM Lion logo at the beginning. MGM merged with United Artists in 1982, the year before the release of Octopussy and this is the first Bond movie distributed by the new company, MGM/UA Distribution Co.
  
  
• The Octopussy character was originally intended to be a villainess and in the media at the time it was reported that Faye Dunaway was being considered for this part. Sybil Danning and Persis Khambatta were also contenders.
  
  
• Cameo: [Michael G. Wilson] a passenger on the riverboat / a Soviet Security Council Member.
  
  
• It was not a planned part of the Indian cabbie chase sequence when a cyclist rode between the two battling vehicles, providing added suspense.
  
  
• Footage of Roger Moore and Kristina Wayborn in bed shown in one of the film's trailers is not included in the film itself.
  
  
• Another actor was hired in addition to Vijay Amritraj when there was a dispute with Actor's Equity because Armitraj was not a member of the actor's union.
  
  
• Stuntman Martin Grace had a serious accident while filming on the train. Hanging on the side of it, the train went into a non-assessed area of the track and he rammed into a pylon, seriously damaging his leg and hip and hospitalizing him for several months. He made a full recovery. In a similar vein, the actor who uses the buzz saw yo-yo broke his arm when he fell over the balcony onto Octopussy's bed. Despite his injury and having to wear a cast, he insisted on completing the rest of his scenes.
  
  
• In the train-flying car stunt, when the car landed, one of the stunt men dressed as a fisherman only just made it out of the row boat in the lake where the car was landing. This footage can be seen in the finished film.
  
  
• The crocodile water vessel that James Bond travels in is a reference / homage to the diving suit with a pigeon-on-the-head sequence from Goldfinger (1964).
  
  
• Ken Burns, an extra working on the film at the Nene Valley train location was allowed to film a Super-8 six minute movie of the filming at the Peterborough, England location. This is now available to view on the Ultimate Edition DVD of the movie. The short includes footage of Roger Moore and Michael G. Wilson and focuses on machinery and filmmaking mechanics. The sixteen year old extra was playing an East German Border Guard and lived near to the location. He was affectionately known on the set as the "3rd Unit".
  
  
• Vijay Amritraj is a professional tennis player in real life.
  
  
• The "company" taxi used to pick up 007 was specially constructed at Pinewood Studios, and capable of speeds in excess of 70mph.
  
  
• Robert Brown appears as "M" for the first time.
  
  
• The end credits identity the next movie as, "From A View to a Kill." In fact the title wound up being A View to a Kill (1985).
  
  
• Bond meets up with Vijay when he hears Vijay play a few bars of "The James Bond Theme."
  
  
• Q appears as an active participant in a mission for the first time, as opposed to being behind the scenes.
  
  
• The other source material, the short story "Property of a Lady," was originally published in a special edition of an auction house catalog. It was not part of the original short story collection Octopussy, but was added later when the book was published in paperback.
  
  
• The Acrostar plane used in the pre-title sequence is now hanging from the ceiling of a restaurant in Clearwater Florida, USA.
  
  
• Octopussy's island located in Udaipur, India is also known as the "City of Sunrise".
  
  
• The character of Penelope Smallbone was named for one of the models who appeared in the opening credits to The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). At one point, Lois Maxwell flubbed a line and called her Penelope Smallbush.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [John Glen] [[pigeon]: As Bond creeps on the ledge after breaking out of his room at Kamal's mansion.]
  
  
• At one point during Bond's escape from Khan's palace, we hear the famous Tarzan yell from the Johnny Weissmuller films of the 1930s.
  
  
• Roger Moore uses the Walther P-5 throughout much of the film.
  
  
• A large portrait of clown Lou Jacobs of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus can be seen during the circus performance sequence.
  
  
• The last film of Patrick Barr.
  
  
• The Fabergé Egg as seen in the movie was actually the Imperial Coronation Egg designed by Peter Carl Fabergé. It was made 1897 to commemorate the 1894 Coronation of Czar Nicholas II. The jeweled egg contains a model of a Coronation Coach; a guilloché field of starbursts with a translucent lime yellow enameling on the exterior surface; trellised greenish gold laurel leave bands have mounted at each intersection point an opaque black enamelled Imperial gold double-headed eagle with a rose diamond on their chest; on the top is a large portrait diamond with a cluster of ten smaller diamonds; and a smaller portrait diamond is set within a cluster of rose diamonds at the reverse end. The egg is also known as "Lilies of the Valley" but it is never called this in the film. Almost twenty years later the egg would re-appear in the movie Ocean's Twelve (2004)
  
  
• James Bond's aliases in the movie were Colonel Luis Toro during the opening sequence; Charles Morton, a Leeds furniture manufacturing representative; and as a clown during the film's finale. Of the three, the first and last involved disguises, the most ever for Roger Moore in a Bond movie. Also, this is the second highest number of aliases used by James Bond in a Bond movie, one less than the record of four held by Diamonds Are Forever (1971).
  
  
• The ending sequence with the Beech-18 aircraft was filmed in Utah, using an old rocket launch catapult. When the plane went over the edge, it was supposed to fly straight down, but instead, whilst full of explosives, turned right and flew in a circle unaided over a busy freeway, before crashing harmlessly. The actual crash into the ground was re-filmed with a model.
  
  
• Kristina Wayborn broke several toes in her foot while shooting the attack on the Monsoon Palace by Octopussy's Circus. A bazooka she was to kick out of a thug's arms was supposed to be replaced with a plastic model, but the stuntman was holding a metal one by accident.
  
  
• Filming of the 12 foot Acrostar Jet as it flew through the hangar was achieved by attaching the aircraft to an old Jaguar by a steel pole with the roof torn off and driving along. The second unit were able to add obstacles such as people and objects to complete the illusion that Moore was actually flying his tiny plane through an aircraft hangar. The exploding hangar pieces were four inches high.
  
  
• Vijay Amritraj plays a snake charmer in disguise. In reality, Amritraj is terrified of snakes and was virtually unable to take part in any of the action. The character even says "I hate snakes!" which was also a recurring line in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
  
  
• Though an Indian location had been previously mooted for Live and Let Die (1973), India only really became a choice when location scouts came across the city of Udaipur and its local leader allowed full co-operation and access to its architecturally stunning palaces.
  
  
• The quip at the end of the opening sequence - "Fill her up" - was initially removed by John Glen. It was only when he went to his local cinema and caught the trailer for "Octopussy" (which included the line) and saw how well it went down with the audiences that he reinstated it.
  
  
• "Octopussy and The Living Daylights" was the 14th and the final Ian Fleming James Bond book published in 1966. Sometimes released as just "Octopussy", it was the second posthumous book in the series after "The Man With The Golden Gun". Before he died, Fleming had intended to produce a second book of James Bond short stories like the "For Your Eyes Only" collection.
  
  
• The film's Royal World Premiere was held on 6 June 1983 at London's Odeon Leicester Square Theatre in the presence of British Royals Prince Charles and Princess Diana of England.
  
  
• The first line of the Ian Fleming James Bond "Octopussy" short-story read: "'You know what?' said Major Dexter Smythe to the octopus. 'You're going to have a real treat today if you can manage it'."
  
  
• Louis Jourdan as Kamal Khan was the second French actor to play a leading Bond villain in the official James Bond series. Michael Lonsdale as Hugo Drax was the first in Moonraker (1979), Sophie Marceau as Elektra King was the third in The World Is Not Enough (1999) whilst Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene in Quantum of Solace (2008) was the fourth.
  
  
• The last line of the Ian Fleming James Bond "Octopussy" short-story read: "It is only from the notes of Dr. Graves, who performed the autopsy, that it has been possible to construct some kind of postscript to the bizarre and pathetic end of a once valuable officer of the secret service."
  
  
• The music video for the film's title song "All Time High" features Rita Coolidge at an Indian Palace which in reality is actually one of the movie's filming locations at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, East Sussex, England.
  
  
• Cameo: [Ingrid Pitt] The former Hammer horror scream-queen as the voice (uncredited) of a Galley Mistress.
  
  
• During pre-production, there were some concerns of how a movie with this title would be received.
  
  
• Kristina Wayborn as Magda says a romantic au revoir to James Bond by way of an elegant elegiac window exit. She actually performed this stunt herself, swirling down to the ground, her dress acting as her support and being unwound as she alighted safely to the ground. Weyborn's departure was filmed in two different locations: her fall from the balcony was filmed at Pinewood Studios in England and her landing was filmed on location in India.
  
  
• The wristwatch with a television monitor is known as the "Liquid Crystal TV Seiko," model T001-5019. Two physical watches were supplied to the production. The screen on the retail version available to consumers was black and white only.
  
  

• SPOILER: When James Bond escapes from Kamal Khan's palace by hiding in a sack containing a dead bandit, it is the same type of ruse that was used in a novel by Alexandre Dumas père, "The Count of Monte Cristo".
  
  

Related Links