The location in Zambujal, Portugal, used for the home of Marc-Ange Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti) in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Site of Draco’s birthday celebration in the film, the estate sported a private bullring and sumptuous gardens. Said screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who departed somewhat from Fleming’s description of the head of the Union Corse crime syndicate, “What I thought we should do to Draco, our sympathetic Mafioso, was to give him some interest in livestock. In this case, we made him a cattleman, someone who raised bulls as a pastime. Such a background gave some weight to Draco’s decision at the end of the film to support Bond’s attack on Piz Gloria. The birthday sequence was also helped when we discovered the Da Vinho estate in Portugal, which I thought was absolutely right for this man’s background.”[1]

[1] Richard Maibaum, interview by Steven Jay Rubin, Los Angeles, April 30, 1977.