Moonraker (1979) · Bond Atlas

Plot

A Moonraker space shuttle bound for Britain vanishes in transit. M sends James Bond to California to investigate its manufacturer, industrialist Hugo Drax. At Drax's estate, Bond survives a lethal centrifuge test and, with help from pilot Corinne Dufour, discovers plans for an unknown installation. Drax has Corinne killed. The trail takes Bond to Venice, where he finds a secret laboratory inside a glassworks. He also meets NASA scientist Holly Goodhead, who proves to be an undercover CIA agent. The glass globes made there contain a nerve agent derived from a rare South American orchid: fatal to humans but harmless to other life.

Bond encounters Holly again in Rio de Janeiro and survives an attack by Jaws on the Sugarloaf cable car. After Drax has Holly abducted, Bond follows a shipment into the Amazon. Aboard an armed Glastron speedboat he reaches a launch complex concealed inside a temple. Drax carries hand-picked men and women aboard six shuttles to a cloaked space station in Earth orbit. From there he intends to release the poison globes into the atmosphere, eradicate humanity and repopulate Earth with his supposedly perfect elite.

Bond and Holly disable the station's cloaking system, allowing an American space force to attack. When Drax decides that Jaws and Dolly also fail his standards, Jaws changes sides. Bond ejects Drax into space, while Jaws helps the agents escape. Bond and Holly then use a Moonraker orbiter to destroy the final poison globe before it can reach Earth.

Facts

James Bond: Roger Moore
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Screenplay: Christopher Wood
Producers: Albert R. Broccoli
Music: John Barry
Title song: „Moonraker“Shirley Bassey
Based on: Ian Fleming: „Moonraker“1955
Running time: 126 minutes
Budget: $30 millionContemporary figure reported by AFI/Variety: increased from an initial $25 million to $30 million. The Numbers lists $31 million; some later secondary sources give $34 million.
Box office: $210 millionworldwide according to Box Office Mojo; $70,308,099 of that total came from the North American market
Release: UK: 26 June 1979US: 29 June 1979Germany: 31 August 1979

Travel route and filming locations

Gold numbers trace Bond's journey through the story, light markers show the real filming locations. Each layer can be hidden separately.

Bond's route · 7 stops

Total distance (great-circle)≈ 30,971 km

After the British Moonraker orbiter is stolen, M orders Bond to investigate its manufacturer, Drax Industries.
London → Los Angeles International Airport · ≈ 8,774 km
Bond lands in California and Corinne Dufour takes him to Hugo Drax's estate.
Los Angeles International Airport → Drax estate and aerospace complex, California · ≈ 76 km
Bond investigates Drax Industries, survives an attack in the centrifuge trainer and photographs secret plans. The map point is representative near Palmdale; the estate is fictional.
Drax estate and aerospace complex, California → Venice · ≈ 9,820 km
At a glassworks Bond discovers Drax's nerve-agent laboratory, meets Holly Goodhead and escapes his pursuers in the Bondola across St Mark's Square.
Venice → Rio de Janeiro · ≈ 9,445 km
Bond follows Drax's shipments to Rio, survives Jaws's attack on the Sugarloaf cable car and receives Q's analysis of the poison.
Rio de Janeiro → Upper Amazon · ≈ 2,857 km
Bond follows an orchid shipment upriver and fights off Drax's boats with the armed Glastron. The film combines several widely separated real locations into a fictional Amazon route.
Upper Amazon → Drax's temple launch base in the Amazon · ≈ 0 km
Behind a waterfall Bond discovers Drax's launch complex, is captured with Holly and boards a Moonraker orbiter.
Drax's temple launch base in the Amazon → Drax space station in Earth orbit · ≈ 0 km
Bond and Holly foil Drax's plan in space. Because Earth orbit has no fixed geographic point, the map deliberately repeats the launch-base coordinates and adds no invented great-circle distance.

Filming locations · 18

Aerial photography for the pre-title parachute fight; the stunt team made more than 80 jumps across five weeks
doubles for Drax estate, California (United States)
Exteriors of Drax's Californian mansion and Bond's arrival
doubles for Drax estate, California (United States)
Interiors of Drax's mansion
doubles for Drax Industries, California (United States)
Its escalators and high-tech architecture appear as the administration and conference area of Drax Industries
Large sets including parts of the space station and shuttle interiors; the production also used stages in Boulogne-Billancourt and at Paris Studios Cinéma
Miniatures, optical effects and additional interiors; the visual-effects work led by Derek Meddings remained at Pinewood despite the move to France
doubles for Drax Industries (United States)
Exteriors of the Drax Industries manufacturing complex
Scenes of the American space centre; the earlier exteriors of the Moonraker assembly plant were filmed at Rockwell's Palmdale facility
Entrance to Drax's glassworks; the glassmaking demonstration was filmed separately at a workshop on Murano, while the secret laboratory was a studio set
The apparently emptied laboratory Bond finds when he returns with Minister Gray and Drax
The motorboat and gondola chase, the Bondola's transformation into a hovercraft and parts of the fight with Chang
The hotel where Holly Goodhead stays during her mission in Venice
Jaws attacks Bond and Holly in a cable car; exteriors used the real cableway, supplemented by close-ups and stunt work
doubles for Monastery near Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Q Branch's supposed Brazilian headquarters, where Bond receives the analysis of the nerve agent
doubles for Amazon (Brazil)
The high-speed boat chase through the supposed Amazon
doubles for Amazon region (Brazil)
Aerial and landscape shots for the waterfall over which Bond escapes by hang glider
doubles for Drax's temple in the Amazon (Brazil)
Exteriors of the temple concealing Drax's launch complex
doubles for Drax's Amazon base (Brazil)
Water basin and jungle surroundings for the scene in which Bond is trapped above a python pool

Characters and cast

Bond

James BondRoger MooreMoore's fourth outing as 007

Bond girls

Villains

Sir Hugo DraxMichael LonsdaleIndustrialist who plans to wipe out humanity with nerve gas and breed a new elite in space

Henchmen

Allies

MI6

Others

Vehicles & Gadgets

Vehicles

A surviving Glastron CV-23HT from Moonraker, displayed at the National Motor Museum in BeaulieuPhoto: Karen Roe from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Glastron Carlson CV-23HT
Boat1978
Silver-grey speedboat with mines, torpedo, protective shield and deployable hang glider
Three silver-grey examples were prepared for the film. A surviving screen-used boat belongs to the Ian Fleming Foundation and has been displayed in the Bond in Motion exhibition.
Driven by
James Bond
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com · Glastron CV-23HT speedboat – Ian Fleming Foundation · Glastron CV23HT – Bond Lifestyle
Eon Productions Bondola
Boat
Motorised gondola that converts into a hovercraft
Four gondolas were modified for the chase. The transition from water to St Mark's Square took five attempts; Roger Moore capsized on four of them.
Driven by
James Bond
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com · 007 Drives The Bondola – 007.com
MP Lafer
Car1979
Brazilian roadster in which Manuela collects Bond in Rio
Driven by
Manuela
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com · 1979 MP Lafer in Moonraker – IMCDb
Hispano-Suiza J12 Cabriolet
Car1936
Formal car at Drax's French-styled Californian estate; model identification according to IMCDb
Driven by
Drax's chauffeur
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com · 1936 Hispano-Suiza J12 in Moonraker – IMCDb
NASA's test orbiter Enterprise illustrates the real Space Shuttle programme that inspired the fictional Moonraker orbitersPhoto: NASA · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Drax Industries Moonraker space shuttle
Aircraft
Fictional orbiter fleet modelled on NASA's contemporary Space Shuttle programme
The theft of a Moonraker orbiter triggers Bond's assignment. Drax later launches six orbiters to his space station; Bond and Goodhead use one to pursue the final poison globe.
Driven by
Drax's pilots; later James Bond and Holly Goodhead
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com

Gadgets

Wrist dart gun
Q equips Bond with a launcher worn beneath his sleeve. It fires armour-piercing and cyanide-tipped darts and is triggered by a sharp movement of the wrist.
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com
X-ray safecracker
Disguised as a cigarette case, the device X-rays the mechanism of Drax's safe and shows Bond how to open it.
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com
Seiko watch with explosive charge
The Seiko M354 contains a remotely detonated explosive charge. Bond uses it to create an escape route aboard the space station.
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com
007 miniature camera
A tiny camera bearing the 007 logo photographs Drax's technical documents in Venice.
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com
Venetian-glass poison globes
Drax has glass globes made in Venice to hold a nerve agent derived from a rare orchid. It kills humans while leaving animals and plants unharmed.
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com
Laser weapons
Q tests portable laser weapons at a Brazilian monastery before they are used in the battle for Drax's station.
Sources: Moonraker – 007.com

Production and trivia

Although the previous film had announced For Your Eyes Only as the next entry, the contemporary science-fiction boom led the producers to make Moonraker first.
Principal photography began in Paris on 14 August 1978 and continued through February 1979.
To qualify for French financing, much of the production moved from Pinewood to Paris; the visual-effects work remained at Pinewood.
Three Paris studio complexes – Épinay, Boulogne-Billancourt and Paris Studios Cinéma – pooled their stages for the extensive sets.
Variety reported that the initially planned $25 million budget rose to $30 million, with another estimated $10 million for prints and advertising.
The location unit spent roughly three weeks each in Venice and Rio de Janeiro.
The team made more than 80 jumps over California during five weeks to create the pre-title parachute fight.
Four gondolas were prepared for the Venice chase; according to the official Bond site, one could reach about 60 miles per hour.
Production designer Ken Adam researched NASA's plans for the future. Moonraker was his final Bond film as production designer.
The production claimed contemporary records for the most breakaway glass and the largest simulated zero-gravity scene.
Derek Meddings, Paul Wilson and John Evans received an Academy Award nomination for visual effects; Alien won at the 1980 ceremony.
Lewis Gilbert had met Lois Chiles by chance on a flight. When the originally intended actress became unavailable, Chiles was cast as Holly Goodhead.
Bernard Lee played M for the eleventh and final time; he died in 1981 before filming of the next entry.
With about $210.3 million worldwide, Moonraker was the highest-grossing Bond film until GoldenEye surpassed it in 1995.
The German dub was made by cine-adaption GmbH in Munich-Gauting. Niels Clausnitzer wrote the dialogue script and voiced Roger Moore; John Pauls-Harding directed the dubbing.