Moonraker
Moonraker (1979) is the eleventh spy film in the James Bond series, and the fourth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film, directed by Lewis Gilbert, co-stars Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale and Richard Kiel. In the film, Bond is sent to investigate the mysterious theft of a space shuttle, leading him to Hugo Drax, billionaire owner of the shuttle-manufacturing firm. Along with space scientist Holly Goodhead, who later is identified as a CIA agent also investigating Drax, Bond follows the trail of clues from California to Venice, Italy, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the Amazon rain forest, and finally into outer space in a bid to prevent a genocidal plot to wipe out the world and re-create human existence with a master race.
Moonraker was intended by its creator Ian Fleming to be turned into a film even before he completed the novel in 1954, as he based the novel on a manuscript he had written even earlier than this. The producers of the James Bond film series had originally intended to release Moonraker in 1973 with Roger Moore making his debut as Bond, but the film was put on hold and finally released in 1979 to coincide with the science fiction genre which had become extremely popular during this period with films such as Star Wars (1977).
Derek Meddings, a long-time contributor to the James Bond series, received an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects nomination for the special effects used in the film and its space scenes.
Moonraker, despite receiving negative reviews from the popular critics of the time, was the highest grossing film of the series until the Pierce Brosnan Bond film GoldenEye. It collected a total of $210,300,000 world wide surpassing the earlier Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Moonraker was also noted for its high production cost for a Bond film, using almost double the budget of the preceding Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.
Cast
Roger Moore as James Bond: An MI6 agent assigned to look into the theft of a shuttle from the "Moonraker" space programme.- Michael Lonsdale as Sir Hugo Drax: An industrialist who plans to poison all humans on earth and establish a civilization in space.
- Lois Chiles as Holly Goodhead: A CIA agent who joins Bond and flies with him to Drax's space station.
- Toshiro Suga as Chang: Drax's bodyguard, skilled at martial arts.
- Richard Kiel as Jaws: A henchman, afflicted by giantism and has a set of stainless steel teeth, whom Drax hires as a replacement for Chang. He helps Bond defeat Drax after learning that hormonally abnormal humans would be killed by the latter.
- Corinne Clery as Corinne Dufour: Drax's personal pilot. She is killed by Drax's doberman pinschers after she inadvertently aides Bond.
- Bernard Lee as M: The strict head of MI6.
- Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary.
- Desmond Llewelyn as Q: MI6's "quartermaster" who supplies Bond with multi-purpose vehicles and gadgets useful for the latter's mission.
- Geoffrey Keen as Fredrick Gray: The British Minister of Defence
- Walter Gotell as General Gogol: The head of the KGB
- Emily Bolton as Manuela: Bond's local contact in Rio.
- Blanche Ravalec as Dolly: Jaws's Girlfriend
