Trivia / You Only Live Twice

The film

• Actor-Inspired Element: Aki was originally named Suki. Akiko Wakabayashi requested that the name be changed.
• B-Team Sequel: This was the first Bond film not to be written by Richard Maibaum, as he was unavailable. It was also the first not to be shot by Ted Moore, as he was working on A Man for All Seasons.
• California Doubling: The underwater scenes are supposed to be Hong Kong harbour, but were shot in the Bahamas and Gibraltar; also, since Japan didn't allow for Stuff Blowing Up in a national park, parts of the Little Nellie battle were shot in Spain.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Mie Hama was originally intended for the larger role of Aki, but doubts over her mastering of English meant that she was ineligible for the part. Hama's reported depression over losing the role, and the disgrace it would bring to her family (she threatened to throw herself off the Imperial Hotel), was instrumental in her taking the equally important, though less vocal part of Kissy Suzuki. Meanwhile Akiko Wakabayashi was originally cast as Kissy.
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Lewis Gilbert cast Tetsurō Tamba as Tanaka having worked with him on The 7th Dawn.
• Completely Different Title:
  • One Doesn't Live More Than Twice (France)
  • 007 Dies Twice (Japan)
  • One Only Lives Twice (Germany and Latin America)
  • James Bond In Japan (Norway and Greece)
  • With 007 You Only Live Twice (Brazil and Portugal)
  • 007 Seized The Rocket Base (China).
• The Danza: Aki is played by Akiko Wakabayashi. The character, formerly "Suki," was renamed at her request.
• Duelling Movies: With the non-Eon Productions parody film Casino Royale. You Only Live Twice won, with the biggest box office numbers and better reviews.
• Executive Meddling: Producer Harry Saltzman hired Jan Werich to play Blofeld without consulting director Lewis Gilbert or fellow producer Albert Broccoli, an example of the increasingly eccentric decisions that eventually helped force him off the series.
• Fake American: Alexander Knox, who played the U.S. Secretary of Defense, was Canadian by birth.
• Hostility on the Set: The atmosphere during the production was reportedly chilly. Sean Connery had grown bored with the Bond role and frustrated with the public fascination with the franchise. The posters declaring that "Sean Connery IS James Bond" didn't help. Furthermore, Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell were appearing in the Bond knock-off film Operation Double 007 with Neil Connery, Sean's younger brother, and the elder Connery let them know he was not happy about it. Furthermore, Connery's relationship with Broccoli and Saltzman had deteriorated to the point where he refused to act if either of them were onset. Compared to that, a visit to the set by the England football team (filming took place at the time of the build-up to the 1966 World Cup) was child's play, even for a patriotic Scot like Connery (who nevertheless got on very well with Bobby Moore, the England captain).
• Looping Lines: This was the last Bond movie to make extensive use of voice dubbing. In this movie, and most of those made previously, many of Bond's leading ladies and villains were dubbed by other actors and actresses. This practice rarely occurred in following Bond movies.
  • Nikki van der Zyl dubbed Mie Hama. Ironically, Hama was given that role instead of Aki because it required less English.
  • Robert Rietti provided the voice for Tiger Tanaka, though Tetsurô Tanba's own voice is still heard for his Japanese dialogue.
  • Alexander Knox, who played the U.S. Secretary of Defense, was re-voiced by an unknown actor. Although Canadian by birth, Knox's natural speaking voice carried a strong English accent.
  • Eric Pohlmann, who had voiced Blofeld in his previous two appearances, voices one of the SPECTRE control room technicians. It's believed that he was originally hired to overdub Jan Werich when he was meant to be playing Blofeld, and given a different role so as not to waste his fee after Werich was replaced by Donald Pleasence.
• Money, Dear Boy: Roald Dahl agreed to write the script because he needed the money.
  If you've got enough money to live comfortably, there's no reason in the world to do a screenplay. It's an awful job.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: Reportedly, the noise made during the shooting of the grand finale on the volcano set scared Blofeld's white cat and it ran away. It wasn't found for several days, and it was eventually discovered hiding in some of the set's rafters. Footage of the scared cat wound up in the finished movie when Blofeld's security shutters are closed. Donald Pleasence claimed that the cat would dirty his trousers when scared.
• On-Set Injury: While filming the Little Nellie battle in Miyazaki Prefecture, aerial cameraman John Jordan, who was standing on the landing strut of the camera helicopter, was struck in the foot by the autogyro's blade. Although doctors in the area were able to reattach the foot, he had it amputated when he returned to the UK.
• The Other Darrin: Donald Pleasence takes over the role of Blofeld from the Anthony Dawson/Eric Pohlmann combo that had previously been playing the part...
• The Other Marty: ...however, he wasn't the first person who attempted to do so. The original actor they cast was Jan Werich, who proved completely wrong for the role for looking too grandfatherly◊ (being even compared with Santa Claus) and so was replaced by Pleasence. In the final cut, many of Blofeld's scenes prior to The Reveal still feature Werich, as only his hands and legs are visible, meaning that all they needed to do was have Pleasence overdub his dialogue.
• Refitted for Sequel: After "The things I do for England" was only in the trailer for Thunderball, Bond actually says it in the final cut here while cutting open Helga's dress.
• Sampled Up: The main musical arrangement of the Title Theme Tune would later be used in Robbie Williams' 1998 hit single "Millennium". Williams cites You Only Live Twice as one of his all-time favourite Bond films.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot:
  • Mie Hama was having serious trouble learning English, while Akiko Wakabayashi had much progress. Since the former took this so seriously that she threatened to kill herself if fired (she was afraid of dishonouring her family), the producers just traded the roles between actresses, as Kissy appears much later in the story and has fewer lines.
  • The Toyota 2000GT wasn't supposed to be a convertible, but it got converted into one due to Sean Connery's height. (Indeed, technically it wasn't even a "convertible" at all, as they didn't add a soft-top.)
• Stunt Double: Mie Hama was unable to film the scenes where she was swimming (some sources say she didn't know how to swim, some say she was ill). Sean Connery's then-wife, Diane Cilento, volunteered to film the scenes, disguising herself with a black wig.
• Throw It In!: While everyone else is remarkably calm, Blofeld's cat gets completely freaked out and tries to escape when the control room starts taking structural damage. This was kept in the film.
• Troubled Production: Most of the problems had to do with the scope of the production, and the technical difficulties that went along with it.
  • The press intrusion into Sean Connery's life started to become a serious issue. The constant media attention meant that thirty extra private security guards were hired to combat the excess noise and hindrance, but even the guards started to take photos. At one point, a fan began following Connery with a camera, and the Japanese police had to deal with fan incursions several times during shooting. The final straw came when a journalist followed Connery into the toilets for an interview. This contributed to his growing dissatisfaction with the role.
  • Not helping Connery's mood was his deteriorating relationship with Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. It got to the point where he refused to act if either of them was on set.
  • During one interview, Connery offended Japanese national pride at a press conference by stating that "Japanese women are just not sexy" due to their hiding their figures behind kimonos. This faux pas turned out to be based on a mistranslation, on a day when Connery was exhausted after an intensive day's filming.
  • Connery was also worried about typecasting and was annoyed that people only saw him as James Bond. The fact that the posters boasted that "Sean Connery IS James Bond" didn't help. One interviewer was aghast that the actor showed up in a casual t-shirt with baggy trousers and sandals, and not wearing a toupée. "Is this how James Bond dresses?" he asked, to which Connery replied tersely "I'm not James Bond, I'm Sean Connery, a man who likes to dress comfortably."
  • The volcano set cost almost as much as Dr. No's entire budget. It was so large, it could be seen from three miles away. The final battle required the services of every stuntman in Britain. According to Ken Adam, it required more steel than that used for the London Hilton Hotel. He later said that he must have been mad doing such a complex set.
  • Saltzman hired Jan Werich to play the part of Blofeld without consulting Lewis Gilbert or Broccoli, and though Gilbert perservered with Werich, it soon became obvious that he was completely miscast, leading to the role being hastily recast with Donald Pleasence.
  • Casting the main girls had its troubles. Mie Hama was originally given the role of Aki, but lost it because her English wasn't very good. She threatened to throw herself off the roof of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo out of shame, so she was given the role of Kissy instead, which required less English dialogue (she was dubbed, anyway).
  • While scouting locations in Japan, Broccoli, Saltzman, Gilbert, cinematographer Freddie Young, and Adam were booked to leave Japan on BOAC flight 911 departing Tokyo for Hong Kong and London. Two hours before their Boeing 707 flight departed, the team was invited to an unexpected ninja demonstration, and so missed their plane. Their flight took off as scheduled, and twenty-five minutes after take-off, the plane disintegrated over Mt. Fuji, killing all aboard.
  • The Little Nellie battle was initially shot in Miyazaki, first with takes of the gyrocopter, with more than eighty-five take-offs, five hours of flight, and pilot Ken Wallis nearly crashing into the camera several times. A scene filming the helicopters from above created a major downdraft, and aerial cameraman John Jordan's foot was severed by the craft's rotor, which required amputation. The concluding shots involved explosions, which the Japanese government did not allow in a national park, so the crew moved to Torremolinos, Spain, which was found to resemble the Japanese landscape.
  • The Toyota 2000GT weren't convertables, but the 6'2 Connery couldn't fit into the tiny car, so the producers had to ask Toyota if they could send one without a roof. Two weeks later, they got a car sans roof.
  • Akiko Wakabayashi couldn't drive, so six stuntmen created the illusion of her driving by attaching a cable, and pulling it from outside of the frame. Stuntmen also substituted for her in long camera shots by donning black wigs.
  • Hama couldn't dive (allegedly due to stomach cramps), so Connery's wife Diane Cilento doubled for her wearing a black wig.
  • Local Japanese girls cast as extras refused to wear bikinis in publicity photo shoots. On the intervention of Broccoli, consent was able to be achieved.
  • In post-production, the cut that Gilbert and editor Thelma Connell came up with ran at an absurdly long three hours and got universally negative feedback from a test audience. The producers, realizing they had a potential Franchise Killer on their hands, begged former series editor Peter Hunt (who had moved away from editing into handling the second unit, as a stepping-stone to becoming a director in his own right) to re-edit it into something much more manageable, and Hunt agreed, so long as he was allowed to direct the next entry in the series.
  • Even recording the title song had problems. Nancy Sinatra, fresh off her chart hit "These Boots are Made for Walkin'", was so nervous about doing it that it took twenty-five different takes (by her own admission, she sounded like Minnie Mouse). The final song used in the film was made up of the best parts from each recording. At one point, she asked the crew, "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have Shirley Bassey?"
  • The end product once again proved a critical and commercial hit, but Connery decided enough was enough and temporarily retired from the role until he came back for Diamonds Are Forever.
• Uncredited Role:
  • Andy Ho as a control room technician.
  • Richard Marner as a Russian spacecraft communicator.
  • Brian Wilde as a policeman.
• What Could Have Been: Enough for its own page.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Burt Kwouk makes his second appearance in an EON Bond movie as a SPECTRE operative (he was in Goldfinger as Mr. Ling)
  • Charles Gray would later play Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever.
  • Tsai Chin, who plays the girl Bond sleeps with in the opening teaser, played one of Bond's poker adversaries in Casino Royale (2006).
  • Shane Rimmer plays a NASA operator. He would later play Willard Whyte's space operator in Diamonds Are Forever and Commander Carter in The Spy Who Loved Me.
  • Ed Bishop is the Hawaii CAPCOM as the NASA capsule encounters a mysterious spaceship in the cold open. A couple of years later, he'd later play scientist Klaus Hergersheimer in Diamonds Are Forever, before encountering a lot more unidentified flying objects as Ed Straker in UFO (1970).
  • Peter Maivia was originally cast only as the thug Bond fights at the Osato building, but he so impressed the producers that they gave him a second (unbilled) part as one of the ninjas in the climax, and even got him to choreograph some of the fight scenes.

The novel:

• Creator Breakdown: The story's dark and claustrophobic mood reflected Ian Fleming's own increasing melancholia.
• Write Who You Know: Dikko Henderson and Tiger Tanaka were based on Ian Fleming's friends, traveling companions and fellow journalists Richard Hughes and Tiger Saito.

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