California Doubling: The ski jump with a parachute in the Austrian mountains was actually done on Baffin Island in northern Canada.
Cast the Runner-Up: George Baker and Michael Billington were both candidates to play Bond at various stages.
Completely Different Title: Aside from slightly different verbal times (The Spy That Loved Me in Spain, Norway, France, and Denmark, and The Spy That Loves Me in Poland), there's 007, My Beloved (Finland), The Spy That I Loved (Portugal) and Beloved Spy (Sweden).
Creator Backlash: Screenwriter Richard Maibaum hated the changes made by Christopher Wood to the script, more specifically the change of the organization SPECTRE by Stromberg and the ending climax in the tank.
Dyeing for Your Art: Richard Kiel could only use Jaws' metal dentures for limited times, as they were uncomfortable and made him gag (anyone who had a dental mold taken can identify with his experience).
In the scene where Major Amasova couldn't drive stick, Barbara Bach (Anya's actress) actually couldn't drive stick. Roger Moore's snarky responses were unscripted!
Roger Moore decided at the last minute it would be much more dramatic if he was sitting in the chair instead of standing behind it when the gun underneath the dining table was fired. The special effects team had only reinforced the back of the chair for the original planned shot, which meant Moore risked serious injury if he didn't leap away in time. Moore himself has mentioned that despite pulling off the shot, he still got injured by the explosion.
According to Ken Adam, that was a look of real panic on Barbara Bach's face in the scene where the tunnels of Atlantis are flooding, because she didn't expect such a powerful deluge of water.
Exiled from Continuity: Ernst Stavro Blofeld was supposed to be the main villain and get a proper death, but neither he nor SPECTRE could be used due to the ongoing legal issue (since Thunderball) with Kevin McClory, who was putting together a rival Bond film.
Fake Nationality: Stromberg is Swedish, played by German actor Curd Jürgens.
Fake Russian: Russian secret agent Anya is played by Barbara Bach, an American actress. Incidentally, this movie almost single-handedly changed Americans' views of Russian women as Sensual Slavs. Before it came out, all Russian women were assumed by Americans to be outright Gonks, to the point that American comedians (and especially the hugely influential Johnny Carson) could count on getting cheap and easy laughs by poking fun at the purported hideousness of Russian women. Carson admitted during a visit by Roger Moore that the movie had ruined "half his jokes". Evidently, viewers had by this time forgotten Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love (although she was also an example of this, as Daniela Bianchi is Italian).
On-Set Injury: Roger Moore had a near-miss. He decided at the last minute that it would be much more dramatic if he was sitting in the chair, instead of standing behind it when the gun underneath the dining table was fired. The special effects team had only reinforced the back of the chair for the original planned shot, which meant Moore risked serious injury if he didn't leap away in time.
Production Nickname: The set for Stromberg's supertanker, the Liparus, was nicknamed "the Jonah Set," in reference to the Biblical story of Jonah, who is swallowed by a whale. In the film, the tanker swallows submarines.
Real-Life Relative: When Bond drives the Wet Nellie up onto the beach, a small boy points to the car in the water. This is Richard Kiel's son, Richard George Kiel.
Recursive Adaptation: The movie has a Novelization written by screenwriter Christopher Wood, despite already being based on one of Fleming's novels. This was for two reasons. Firstly, because the plot differed so dang much from the source material that it was felt it was necessary to have a novel that was closer to the film, and secondly, because The Spy Who Loved Me (the original Fleming novel) wasn't very popular, even with its original author.
The Red Stapler: After this movie, demand for white Lotus Esprits grew so much that new customers were put on a three-year waiting list.
Referenced by...: Alan Partridge is a huge fan of this film (it's not just his favourite Bond film, it's his favourite film full stop), to the point where he can re-enact the pre-credits sequence and describe the dancing women in the credits from memory. Observe.
Spared by the Cut: Bond was originally going to kill Jaws by dropping him into an inferno. Albert R. Broccoli realised the character's appeal and had him survive.
Bond and Amasova driving across the desert in their falling apart van while the Lawrence of Arabia theme plays was a joke the editors threw in to amuse themselves, but stuck and made it into the final film.
Albert R. Broccoli had to make the movie alone after falling out with partner Harry Saltzman, and from there it had problems such as a script rushed into production that suffered extensive rewrites, two directors who declined the movie (Steven Spielberg, fresh off the chaos that was Jaws, and Guy Hamilton, who had done the previous three Bonds) and complex effects and scenery that caused some headaches to deploy (specially the supertanker interior, given that a whole new soundstage had to be built at Pinewood Studios to accommodate it).
In one case, Broccoli (who was Italian-American) was literally forced to take a "hands-on" approach: Dissatisfied with both the local Egyptian food, and with how the food he ordered from England arrived either spoiled or stolen, Broccoli sent assistants out to round up tomatoes, cheese, bread and imported pasta from Cairo, and then personally cooked spaghetti for everyone on the set.
The eyesight of cinematographer Claude Renoir was failing at the time of this film, and he could not see to the end of the massive supertanker set. As a result, he could not supervise the lighting. Ken Adam turned to his friend Stanley Kubrick, who — under the condition of complete secrecy — supervised the lighting. He suggested the use of floodlights. In addition, Kubrick's stepdaughter Katharina designed the dentures that Richard Kiel wore in the film.
Tom Mankiewicz, who had worked on the scripts for the previous three Bonds, did uncredited work on this one. Roger Moore reportedly asked Albert R. Broccoli, "When did Mankiewicz get on this picture?" Cubby said, "He's not on the picture, Roger". Moore replied, "Of course he is. He's on every fucking page. Tell him he's doing a good job".
Banned in China: The book was banned in some countries and was not released in a paperback edition in Britain until several years after Fleming's death.
Creator Backlash: Fleming hated the book to the point of only selling the title to the producers. He successfully prevented its paperback publication in the UK (but not the US) until several years after his death.
Creator's Oddball: The novel is the only Bond story from Fleming that is written from a woman's point of view, and likewise is his only Bond novel where Bond himself is not the main character.
Write What You Know: Viviene Michell lost her virginity in a private box in the Royalty Kinema, just like Ian Fleming did.
