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The corkscrew car jump was apparently conceived several years before this movie went into production. Researchers at Cornell University were studying rollover collisions for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and they did a computer simulation of the barrel roll stunt used in this movie. Race car driver W.J. Milligan, Jr., who was the promoter of the American Thrill Show during the 1960s and 1970s, with the sponsorship of the American Motors Corporation, performed the barrel roll stunt, known as the Astro Spiral Jump, and it debuted on January 12, 1972, at the Houston Astrodome, using an AMC Javelin. Milligan was contacted by producer Albert R. Broccoli during an American Thrill Show performance in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where he wanted the stunt performed in a James Bond movie. Producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli allegedly took out patents and copyrights on the stunt, as they did not wish it to appear in another movie before they had used it. The three hundred sixty-degree car-spiralling jump over a canal was performed in just one take by uncredited British stuntman "Bumps" Williard as eight cameras simultaneously captured the spectacle. So potentially hazardous was the nature of the stunt, divers, ambulances, and cranes were on standby alert, in case of any catastrophic consequences. The stunt was so rapid that the film is shown in slow motion. Williard was given a large bonus for completing the jump on the first take. Jay Milligan performed the driving stunts with the AMC Hornet used in this movie. AMC provided fifteen vehicles used in this movie (some of them where AMC Matador police cars). There were two AMC Hornets used for the spiral jump stunt, and one of them is owned by Jay Milligan, which is the back-up vehicle, while the other one is in a museum. The jump is also credited with being the first stunt ever to be calculated by computer modelling.
In his autobiography, Sir Roger Moore said that when they were filming the boat chase on the klongs, he fell in twice. The first was on purpose (because they told him not to do it), and the second time was by accident. On the second fall, Moore made the mistake of opening his eyes underwater, and saw what the local undertakers did with the bodies of the less fortunate. Conversely, this is the only Sir Roger Moore Bond movie where the Bond character is not drenched in water in some way.
While on-location in Thailand, Sir Roger Moore found a cave full of bats. He couldn't resist seeking out Sir Christopher Lee, telling him what he had found and joking "Master, they are yours to command!" Lee appreciated the joke.
Before acting, Sir Christopher Lee had a brief career in the British Secret Service, in which he studied several languages. One of these languages was Swedish. Off-set, he spoke Swedish with Britt Ekland and Maud Adams. His wife, Gitte Lee (née Krøncke) is Danish.
The island used as the filming location for the Scaramanga's beach house (Phang Nga Bay, Thailand) is known as "James Bond Island".
One of the lowest grossing Bond movies. That fact, combined with behind-the-scenes problems, nearly made this the final Bond movie, and delayed production of the next entry in the franchise, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).