★★★1/2  The tenth James Bond film produced by Eon Productions and the first produced solo by Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman having sold his share of Eon in 1975. US release date: August 3, 1977. Budget: $13.5 million. Worldwide box office gross: $185.4 million (US domestic gross: $46.8 million; international gross: $138.6 million).[1] Running time: 125 minutes.

The Setup

British and Russian nuclear submarines are disappearing into thin air—perhaps victims of a new submarine tracking system that is being auctioned off in the Middle East. Having successfully evaded Soviet assassins in Austria, James Bond (Roger Moore) is sent to Cairo to secure the tracking system and find the missing submarines. There he meets his opposite number, formidable Soviet agent Anya “Triple X” Amasova (Barbara Bach), and a terrifying nemesis, Jaws (Richard Kiel), a killer with cobalt steel teeth. Jaws is working for megalomaniac billionaire Karl Stromberg (Curt Jurgens), a marine enthusiast who has plans to destroy the entire world with nuclear weapons, allowing his planned undersea kingdom to flourish.

Behind the Scenes

The Spy Who Loved Me single-handedly revived the sagging Bond series in the mid-1970s. For a new generation of young viewers—fans who would soon be rooting for Indiana Jones, Superman, and E.T.—the film was an epic adventure with a way-out plot involving a worldwide threat, a submarine-swallowing supertanker, a steel-toothed assassin, and a resourceful and beautiful Russian agent who matches 007 play for play. Returning to the fantastical elements that had contributed to Goldfinger’s success, producer Albert R. Broccoli gave production designer Ken Adam a free hand to design the spectacular “Jonah Set,” the massive interior of the Liparus supertanker. Meanwhile, Derek Meddings and Perry Oceanographics were designing the mid-1970s equivalent of Bond’s classic Aston Martin: the Lotus Esprit submarine car. Producer Albert R. Broccoli had carefully updated the saga of 007, and the huge success of The Spy Who Loved Me guaranteed the series’ longevity.

High points: the submarine car; Barbara Bach; Derek Meddings’s special effects; and Carly Simon’s theme song, “Nobody Does It Better.” Low point: Jaws’ invulnerability. Although the Jaws character contributed greatly to the film’s success, compelling the producers to bring him back for Moonraker, it meant they had to make the character effectively unkillable. This took the film too far into comic book territory; Jaws became Wile E. Coyote to Bond’s Road Runner.

[1] “The Spy Who Loved Me (1977),” The Numbers, accessed July 13, 2020, https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Spy-Who-Loved-Me-The.