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Thunderball is a James Bond novel written by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming.
The film adaptation was released in 1965 with James Bond played by Sean Connery. The main villain in the film is Emilio Largo, played by Adolfo Celi. It is the fourth official Bond movie in the franchise. Screenwriter and coauthor McClory also participated in a "noncanonical" remake, 1983's Never Say Never Again. Thunderball was actually supposed to be the first James Bond movie, but was later switched to Dr. No due to a lawsuit with author and executive producer Kevin McClory. In the 90's Sony and Kevin McClory had plans to do yet another remake of Thunderball, called Warhead 2000AD with Timothy Dalton as a potential Bond. Plans for this movie were abandoned in 1999.
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
The film is closely adapted from the the novel. S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (the SPecial EXecutive for Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) has hijacked a nuclear device and is threatening to destroy a major city unless a hefty ransom is paid. Bond is assigned to foil the plot.
Filmed in Caribbean locales, the film is remarkable for its focus on underwater scenes, which contributed greatly to the popularity of scuba diving as a recreational activity.
Claudine Auger, a former Miss France, and Luciana Paluzzi play Domino Derval and Fiona Volpe, the two Bond Girls. Paluzzi's character is the first Bond Girl not to be redeemed by Bond during the course of the movie; she is instead killed by a bullet intended for Bond. One of Volpe's fellow S.P.E.C.T.R.E. henchmen aimed a gun at Bond as he and Volpe were dancing in a nightclub, but in a typically over-the-top plot element, Bond sees the gunman while glancing to the rear, and turns her into the bullet's path at the very moment he fires.
The original title was "Mr. Kiss-Kiss Bang-Bang." This was dropped later in favor of the more dramatic-sounding "Thunderball."
This film is the second time S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was used in the James Bond franchise, the first being From Russia With Love. Technically, S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was involved in the film Dr. No as we later find out in From Russia With Love that Dr. Julius No was a member of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. In the novels, however, S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s first and last appearance was actually in Thunderball although Ernst Stavro Blofeld would later also be in the novels On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice.
S.P.E.C.T.R.E. would later be held up in decades-long litigation between Producer/Contributing Author of Thunderball Kevin McClory and Eon Productions, in which McClory claimed to own the rights to the story. A rather bizarre legal holding many years later allowed McClory to own the name S.P.E.C.T.R.E. as well as other elements of the Bond franchise. McClory went on to make his own version of "Thunderball" in 1983, which he entitled Never Say Never Again and starred Sean Connery as James Bond.
The theme music to Thunderball was sung by Tom Jones. Bond legend has it that he passed out in the recording booth when singing the final high note of the theme song. The soundtrack was composed by Bond veteran, John Barry
Thunderball is the only James Bond movie made during the lifetime of Albert R. Broccoli for which Broccoli was not the executive producer. Due to a lawsuit, that position was filled by Kevin McClory.
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