For Your Eyes Only (1981) on Netflix
PG19812h 7mActionAdventureThriller
A British spy ship sinks with the ATAC, a device that can direct submarine attacks. James Bond must recover it before the Soviets. Melina Havelock's parents were murdered, and she wants revenge.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.7/10117,638 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes69%
Trailer
Plot summary
The British information-gathering vessel St Georges trawls an old naval mine and sinks in the Ionian Sea. On board is the ATAC, the system used to coordinate the Royal Navy's Polaris submarines. Marine archaeologist Sir Timothy Havelock is asked to locate the wreck, but he and his wife are murdered on their yacht by the Cuban hitman Hector Gonzales. Havelock's daughter Melina sees the killings and vows revenge. The KGB chief General Gogol has also learned of the sinking and alerts his contact in Greece. MI6 sends James Bond to recover the ATAC before the Soviets do, since the device could order submarine missile attacks. Bond travels to Spain to learn who hired Gonzales.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
The bald villain with the white cat in the opening is never named. Eon could not call him Blofeld because Kevin McClory claimed the film rights to the character through Thunderball, and director John Glen would only say that letting people draw their own conclusions was a legal thing.- A Greek bishop was paid for access to the Meteora monasteries, but the monks had not been told. They hung out washing, draped the main monastery in plastic bunting and flags and set out oil drums to stop helicopters landing, so the crew resorted to back lighting, matte paintings and a replica monastery built on a nearby rock.
- Bernard Lee died in January 1981 after shooting had begun but before he could play M for a twelfth time. Cubby Broccoli refused to recast the part, so the script was rewritten to put M on leave, making this only the second Bond production without him.
- On the last day of shooting the bobsleigh chase in February 1981, a 23-year-old stuntman, Paolo Rigon, was killed when he was trapped under his sleigh. Coming a week after a driver died at the world championships on the same sort of track, it led to the track being shortened for future FIBT events.
- Rick Sylvester, who had made the ski jump in The Spy Who Loved Me, fell from the cliff as Bond, a stunt that could have killed him had the rope jerked too hard. He recalled that from the spot he could see the local cemetery, and the box built to stop his fall looked like a casket.
- Many of the underwater close-ups of Bond and Melina were shot dry on a soundstage, the illusion built from lighting, slow-motion photography, wind and bubbles added afterwards.
- Debbie Harry was hired to sing the title song and quit when the producers would not let Blondie write and perform an original; that rejected track ended up on Blondie's 1982 album The Hunter. Sheena Easton sang it instead and became the only Bond title singer to appear on screen in the credits.
- Roger Moore's age made his return doubtful, so Eon looked at replacements including Lewis Collins of The Professionals, Ian Ogilvy, Michael Billington and Michael Jayston. Timothy Dalton was strongly considered but pulled out, disliking the direction the series was taking.
