From Russia
With Love
60th Anniversary
1963–2023

Lotte Lenya and Daniela Bianchi filmed the interview between Klebb and Romanova over two days from April 3, 1963. This was followed by the chess game at the Venice International Grandmasters championship featuring the introduction of Kronsteen (played by Polish-born actor Vladek Sheybal), filmed on Pinewood’s ‘D’ Stage. In his winning match against Canadian Grand Master McAdams (played by British character actor Peter Madden), Kronsteen executes his winning moves based on the game between Boris Spassky and David Bronstein, in the 16th round of the 1960 USSR Chess Championship in Leningrad. With Ken Adam unavailable after being engaged as production designer for Dr. Strangelove (1964) by Stanley Kubrick, Art Director Syd Cain took on the production design for From Russia With Love. The tone of the film was completely different to its predecessor, and Cain skilfully created more realistic sets for the second James Bond film, including the salon of the lavish Venice hotel where the chess match took place.

For the long shots of the complete set, the ceiling was a matte painting skilfully blended to match the room and hide the studio lights. Matte artist Cliff Culley (1928-2016) had worked on Dr. No (1962) and would return to the series six more times after From Russia With Love (1963) to provide cost-saving matte paintings and clever optical effects. As was the case with many of the behind-the-scenes skilled technicians, Culley was never formally credited for his work on the James Bond films.

Filming then moved on to the bridal suite set where Bond’s first meeting with Tania was shot from April 8-9, 1963. With Lotte Lenya only available for a short time, the scenes with Kronsteen and Morzeny (played by Walter Gotell) aboard Blofeld’s yacht were filmed on 10th and 11th of April. Playing Blofeld was an uncredited Anthony Dawson, whose face is never seen. In the finished film his voice was provided by Austrian character actor Eric Pohlmann. Both actors would return to perform the same roles in Thunderball (1965). Production then resumed after a four-day Easter break on 16th and 17th of April with night shooting in the gardens behind Heatherden Hall, around which Pinewood Studios was built in 1932. The footage would eventually form the pre-title sequence – an idea put forward by co-producer Harry Saltzman, which was then adopted for the rest of the series, becoming a familiar trademark that opened each film with a ‘bang’ after the iconic gun barrel sequence. In many cases the teaser showed James Bond finishing off a previous mission, with others having no relation to the storyline of the film it preceded. In this instance the pre-title teaser does have a connection to the rest of the film, showing the introduction of Donald Grant (Robert Shaw) and the SPECTRE training camp, culminating in the ‘death’ of James Bond – originally a stand-in who resembled Sean Connery too much when his rubber face-mask was removed. After viewing the rushes, it was decided to re-shoot the ‘reveal’ with another actor sporting a moustache [John Ketteringham (1931-2008)] in order not to confuse audiences. The only dialogue at the end of the brief suspenseful sequence was spoken by Morzeny, played by Walter Gotell, who would return to the series in 1977 to play KGB chief General Gogol in The Spy Who Loved Me – a role he would then reprise in the next five James Bond Films.

On the morning of Saturday April 20, 1963, 70 cast and crew members (including Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Robert Shaw, Pedro Armendariz, publicist Tom Carlile, composer John Barry and co-producer Harry Saltzman) with four tons of equipment boarded a specially chartered BEA Vanguard aircraft at London airport, and flew to Istanbul via Rome. Location filming then began on Monday April 22nd with Bond’s arrival at Yeşilköy Airport, followed the next day with scenes with Sean Connery and Daniela Bianchi on the Kabatas Ferry. The scenes inside the vast St. Sophia Mosque were filmed on Wednesday April 24th, with sound recordist John Mitchell capturing the monotonous voice of the tour guide (Muhummet Kohen) which added real atmosphere to the finished sequence. The almost ‘Hitchcockian’ suspense generated in the scene was enhanced in the final edit by John Barry’s superb ostinato cue ‘Meeting in St. Sophia’. The sequence also includes the late addition of Grant (Robert Shaw), who the audience sees killing the Foreign Agent shadowing Tania and Bond, which was one of several appearances added by uncredited screenwriter Berkely Mather to show the SPECTRE assassin as a mysterious presence throughout the storyline, and Bond’s unseen ‘Guardian Angel’, before the pair finally meet on board the Orient Express. Grant’s murder of the agent later revealed a glaring continuity error after the footage had been edited into a rough cut, as he is seen later following Bond who is travelling in a taxi. The Foreign Agent (played by Hasan Ceylan) is thwarted as Bond pulls on the handbrake causing his car to crash into the back of the taxi, and is then trapped by Kerim Bey who is following behind in another car. An amusing exchange between the pair takes place before Bond and Kerim drive off in an Embassy Rolls-Royce. The continuity error was only spotted at a later preview screening by an eagle-eyed crew-member’s son. The complicated scene was therefore deleted from the finished film, although many stills taken on location in Istanbul captured the action.

Location shooting at Sehzadebasi, Yeni Cinema, Sokagi continued the following week with Sean Connery and Pedro Armendariz as they filmed the scenes outside Krilencu’s hideout and their subsequent shooting of the Bulgarian assassin (played by stuntman Fred Haggerty). Fellow stuntman Jackie Cooper performed the spectacular high fall from the window behind the poster of Call Me Bwana, as Kerim Bey extracts his revenge for the earlier attempt on his life at his Istanbul office. Close-up insert shots of Connery and Armendariz for this sequence would be filmed back at Pinewood Studios when the crew returned to England in late May 1963. More night shooting took place at Istanbul’s Sirkeci train station which also doubled for Zagreb, where Grant (Robert Shaw) boards the train after killing Captain Nash (played by the film’s location manager Bill Hill). James Bond author Ian Fleming arrived in Istanbul during the third week of location filming, and immediately struck up a friendship with Pedro Armendariz. Scenes at the gypsy camp were also captured during night shooting in the Pinewood Paddock. It was during the location filming that Pedro Armendariz had begun to feel pain in his legs and can be seen limping during several of the scenes shot in Istanbul. He saw doctors and was treated in Turkey, but it was confirmed that he was seriously ill with cancer. This was a bitter blow to the cast and crew, but Armendariz was determined to finish the film, and the shooting schedule was adjusted so the production could capture as much footage with the ailing actor as possible. Upon their return to England, Armendariz completed his scenes on board the Orient Express set, and in the Pinewood Paddock, where the gypsy camp sequence was finished, although a double (Frank Hayden) was used in many cases as the actor was then too ill to stand in many scenes. The Mexican actor left the production on June 10, 1963 and travelled to Los Angeles to receive treatment at the UCLA Medical Centre. After hearing the news that his condition was terminal, Pedro Armendariz committed suicide on June 18, 1963 by shooting himself in the chest with an antique pistol he had smuggled into the hospital. He was just 51 years old.

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