A View To A Kill
40th Anniversary 1985-2025

Principal photography began on August 1, 1984 with the MI6 team of James Bond (Roger Moore), M (Robert Brown, Q (Desmond Llewellyn), and Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) joined on location at Royal Ascot Racecourse by Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee). The second unit filmed in Paris for two weeks at the start of August 1984, capturing the action scenes of May Day’s escape from the Eiffel Tower, and subsequent chase along the River Seine. It was during the production of Moonraker (1979) that stunt performer B. J. Worth had conceived the idea of jumping off the 300-metre tower and parachuting to safety. With test jumps from hot air balloons, permission was finally granted for the stunt to take place on the iconic Eiffel Tower, and B. J. Worth successfully performed the jump on August 4, 1984. The scene became the focus of Daniel Goozee’s advance teaser poster for A View To A Kill, and once again allowed the Bond filmmakers to showcase a well-known real-life monument as part of the storyline – a technique pioneered by legendary director Alfred Hitchcock in many of his films. Although B. J. Worth had performed the stunt satisfactorily, the backup stuntman Don Caltvedt was disappointed he did not get the chance to do the jump too. However, Caltvedt climbed the tower early the next morning and performed another unauthorized leap – much to the annoyance of Producer Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, who dismissed him from the production as it was thought his actions had damaged the relationship that EON Productions had made with the Paris authorities, who were allowing this and other important scenes to be filmed in the French Capital.

Stunt driver Remy Julienne co-ordinated the scenes where Bond commandeers a Renault taxi as part of the chase sequence through the city. With a combination of real and modified cars, Julienne himself performed the stunt where the taxi leaps onto a moving bus, loses its roof under a barrier, and is then chopped in two after colliding with another car.

The first unit filmed scenes at Chantilly in mid-August 1984, with Patrick Macnee driving Producer Albert R. Broccoli’s own Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, which had previously appeared in Thunderball (1965), where it was seen outside Shrublands Health Clinic (actually Chalfont Park House in Buckinghamshire) sporting its original licence plate ‘CUB 1’. The scenes of a Rolls-Royce being sunk containing the body of Sir Godfrey Tibbett and an unconscious James Bond were later filmed on September 9th at a flooded gravel pit in Wraysbury in Berkshire, 10 miles from Pinewood Studios – with another Rolls-Royce doubling for Cubby’s car. Scenes at The Living Museum of the Horse (Musée Vivant du Cheval) in Chantilly, France (which doubled as Zorin’s estate) were filmed from August 16 – 22, 1984. The production then moved to Amberley Chalk Pits Museum in West Sussex to capture the exteriors of the destruction of Zorin’s ‘Main Strike’ mine for a week beginning September 10th, with the second unit also filming scenes with the Airship gondola which would be intercut with footage shot in San Francisco, and later with models and full-sized sections of the Golden Gate Bridge constructed on the Pinewood Studios backlot.

The production then moved to San Francisco in early October 1984, where scenes at Stacey Sutton’s home in Oakland were filmed, and at Fisherman’s Wharf where Bond meets CIA Agent Chuck Lee played by British-Chinese actor David Yip, who had gained prominence through his lead role in the BBC television series The Chinese Detective (1981–82), and more recently in his film debut as Wu Han, a friend of Indy (Harrison Ford), who is killed in Club Obi Wan during the opening sequence of Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984), directed by Steven Spielberg. Whilst in San Francisco the production were given unprecedented access to buildings and roads by Mayor Dianne Feinstein, this included ‘setting fire’ to the roof of City Hall achieved by the use of huge gas burners that could be controlled by Special Effects supervisor John Richardson.

The scenes involving the burning City Hall and real fire engines were so convincing that many thought the historic landmark was actually ablaze, and another example of the filmmakers integrating a real location into the action. The night-time fire-truck chase through the streets of San Francisco was filmed by Arthur Wooster’s second unit from September 30 to October 22, 1984, with the third unit capturing the fight on top of the Golden Gate Bridge with Martin Grace doubling Roger Moore, Mike Runyard doubling Christopher Walken, and Karen Price doubling Tanya Roberts. Martin Grace had taken over from veteran action arranger Bob Simmons who was in charge of the horses in A View To A Kill. Remy Julienne also joined the crew in San Francisco to co-ordinate the fire-truck jump across Lefty O’Doul Drawbridge. As spectacular as some of the footage captured in San Francisco was, its integration into the final cut of the film is marred by the inclusion of unnecessary humorous inserts, and poorly conceived back-projection footage of Moore and his stunt doubles, which sadly, had become a staple of the series at this point.

Filming on the interior set of Stacey’s home, and Zorin’s San Francisco pumping station took place at Pinewood Studios from October 12, 1984 – with work on the new ‘007 Stage’ completed by the end of December. Principal photography was scheduled to end on December 12, 1984, but this was revised to January 15, 1985 as the new stage was not ready until the start of the New Year. Filming on the interior of the ‘Main Strike’ mine set continued in early January, and a special naming ceremony was held for the new ‘007 Stage’ on January 7, 1985, with principal cast members joining Producer Albert R. Broccoli to commemorate his latest achievement. The stage was used by many other high profile productions as well as the James Bond series in subsequent years. Another fire occurred on July 30, 2006 – just after production ended on Casino Royale (2006), while the Venetian piazza set was being dismantled. The fire-damaged stage was demolished on 13–14 September 2006. Construction on a new stage began four days later and was completed in under six months.

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FACT FILES