Octopussy

For the original short story collection that inspired the film, see Octopussy and The Living Daylights.

Missing image 007Octopussyposter.jpg Octopussy movie poster
James Bond	Roger Moore
Written by	Ian Fleming (stories)
Screenplay by	George MacDonald Fraser, Michael G. Wilson, Richard Maibaum
Director	John Glen
Music by	John Barry
Theme performed by	Rita Coolidge
Distributor	MGM/UA
Release date	1983
Runtime	131 min.
Preceded by:	- For Your Eyes Only
Followed by:	- A View to a Kill

Octopussy is the thirteenth James Bond film made by EON Productions, and the sixth to star Roger Moore as the British Secret Service agent, Commander James Bond. The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson and released in 1983. It is loosely based upon the Ian Fleming short stories "Octopussy" and "Property of a Lady", both of which were published in the collection Octopussy and The Living Daylights.

Contents

1 Plot summary 2 Cast & characters 3 Crew 4 Soundtrack 4.1 Track listing 5 Vehicles & gadgets 5.1 See also 6 Locations 6.1 Film locations 6.2 Shooting locations 7 Trivia 8 Comic book adaptation 9 External links

Plot summary

When a British agent stumbles into the British Embassy in West Berlin, fatally wounded, with a fake Fabergé egg, MI6 immediately suspect Soviet involvement, especially since the real valuable egg has turned up at auction in London. James Bond is sent to find out who the seller is and subsequently why 009 was murdered because of the fake egg. When an exiled Afghan prince, Kamal Khan, clearly has to buy the egg at any price during the auction, Bond follows him back to his palace in India to find out why.

Kamal Khan is working for renegade Soviet General Orlov, who is supplying Khan with real priceless Soviet treasures, replacing them in state depositories with replicas. Kamal Khan is in turn smuggling them into the west with help from the mysterious Octopussy, a fabulously wealthy woman who lives in a floating palace in India, surrounded by women who are members of her "Octopus" cult, each recognized by a tattooed blue-ringed octopus on their bottom. Octopussy is more than a smuggler, however, and has many legitimate businesses, including shipping, hotels, carnivals and circuses - the latter being used as an ideal front for smuggling jewellery. As a result, many of her female companions and guards are highly trained gymnasts. Bond is led to Octopussy and confronts her, only to find out that she feels indebted to him for letting her father, a British Major, commit suicide rather than face the shame of a court martial when Bond was sent after him for smuggling and murder some years before. With Octopussy now an ally, Kamal Khan manages to separate the pair long enough to pursue his real plan - to replace the jewellery canister being smuggled by Octopussy's circus with a nuclear bomb. The warhead is primed to go off during a performance at a US Air Force base in West Germany. As the explosion will look like an accident, Europe would insist on nuclear disarmament and thus leave western Europe defenceless against an attack from Orlov's Soviet forces.

Cast & characters

• James Bond - Roger Moore
• M - Robert Brown
• Miss Moneypenny - Lois Maxwell
• Q - Desmond Llewelyn
• Octopussy - Maud Adams
• Kamal Khan - Louis Jourdan
• Magda - Kristina Wayborn
• Gobinda - Kabir Bedi
• General Orlov - Steven Berkoff
• Vijay - Vijay Amritraj
• Twin One - David Meyer
• Twin Two - Anthony Meyer
• General Gogol - Walter Gotell
• Rubelvitch (Gogol's Assistant) - Eva Rueber-Staier
• Smithers - Jeremy Bulloch

Crew

• Directed By: John Glen
• Executive Producer: Michael G. Wilson
• Produced By: Albert R. Broccoli
• Screenplay By: George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum, Michael G. Wilson
• Music Composed By: John Barry
• Production Design By: Peter Lamont

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by veteran John Barry. The opening theme, "All Time High" was sung by Rita Coolidge and is one of only two Bond themes that does not reference the movie's title. The other is the theme to On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Track listing

1. All Time High
2. Bond Look Alike
3. 009 Gets the Knife and Gorbinda Attacks
4. That's My Little Octopussy
5. Arrival at the Island of Octopussy
6. Bond at the Monsoon Palace
7. Bond Meets Octopussy
8. Yo Yo Fight and Death of Vijay
9. The Chase Bond Theme
10. The Palace Fight
11. All Time High
12. The Chase Bomb Theme
13. The Palace Fight
14. All Time High by Rita Coolidge

Vehicles & gadgets

• Acrostar Jet - Used in the opening sequence of the film. The wings of this plane fold up vertically while not in use. During this mission, Bond hid the plane in a horse trailer. Due to a small gas tank, Bond was forced to land at a gas station to refill.
• Alligator Boat - Bond sneaks onto Octopussy's island by driving a disguised boat that looks like an alligator.
• Pen - Given to Bond by Q-Branch, this pen contains acid that can burn through any metal.
• Watch - Another gift from Q-Branch, this watch branded by Seiko comes with a beacon that leads Bond to a Fabergé egg. The model used in the movie is the Seiko G757-5020 (often mistaken for the G757-5000, which had a rubber strap instead of the metal one clearly seen in the movie).

See also

• List of James Bond vehicles
• List of James Bond gadgets

Locations

Film locations

• London, England
• East Berlin, Germany — Checkpoint Charlie
• West Berlin, Germany
• Feldstadt, Germany
• Moscow, Russia
• Udaipur, India

Shooting locations

• Pinewood Studios
• India
• Germany
• United States
• England

Trivia

• Movie critics were beginning to comment on Roger Moore's age, as he was 54 years old at the time of filming, and many felt he was too old to play James Bond. He originally announced that he would retire, but returned one final time in 1985's A View to a Kill.

• The title comes from an Ian Fleming short story in which Bond interferes in wartime matters having nothing to do with British Intelligence. The film makes direct reference to the events in the story by revealing that Octopussy's father was the villain of the short story.

• At the end of the film, the credits announce that the next Bond film title as From a View to a Kill. This was later changed to A View to a Kill right before filming began.

• This is the second Bond movie to feature Maud Adams. The producers were reluctant to feature her again because her previous character was killed in The Man with the Golden Gun.

• This is also the first movie to feature Robert Brown as M. It is unknown as to whether Brown is supposed to be playing the same character as Bernard Lee (Sir Miles Messervy) or a different one (possibly a promoted Admiral Hargreaves from The Spy Who Loved Me), as the films did not establish until GoldenEye that 'M' is a title, something which Ian Fleming left ambiguous in the novels.

• The pre-title sequence was originally to take place in Moonraker (along with the concept of twin knife-throwing assassins) over the Angel Falls, but this was shelved after the river-bed dried up.

• Vijay Amritraj was a professional tennis player in real life. The movie makes a spoof of this fact by having Vijay fend off Kamal's henchmen with a tennis racquet, while the surrounding townspeople watch the conflict like a tennis match by repeatedly turning their heads left then right. At one point Vijay's character also jokes that he plays a little tennis.

Comic book adaptation

A magazine format comic book adaptation of Octopussy was produced in 1983 by Marvel Comics. The adaptation was written by Steve Moore and illustrated by Paul Neary.

External links

• Octopussy (1983) at the Internet Movie Database
• MGM's official Octopussy site

Octopussy is also the name of a non-alcoholic cocktail.

See also: Octopussy