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File:Thunderball.jpg
Cquote1
"My dear girl, don't flatter yourself. What I did this evening was for Queen and country. You don't think it gave me any pleasure, do you?"
James Bond to SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe
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The fourth James Bond film, in which SPECTRE nicks a pair of nukes (from an Avro Vulcan), somebody gets the point permanently and there's a shark. Oh, and Tom Jones faints on the last note of the title song.

Thunderball was the first really massive Bond movie. Adjusting its box office tax for inflation, you produce a figure of over $950 million, above Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. On US and Canadian grosses alone, it is, according to The Other Wiki, the 26th highest grosser of all time, beating all of the Harry Potter movies (the "Potter grosses more than Bond" figure is inaccurate, since it doesn't adjust for inflation) and every one of the The Lord of the Rings movies.

The storyline of Thunderball was recycled for the non-canonical Bond film Never Say Never Again, in which a now much older Connery reprised his role as Bond. Sony pictures was at one time planning to remake Thunderball again, this time casting Connery as Ernst Stavro Blofield, but a court ruled against them in the matter of the rights to the James Bond character. (Through subsequent studio mergers, MGM acquired NSNA and the matter became moot.)

The book is notable for being perhaps the first story about terrorists stealing nuclear weapons and holding the world to ransom- a common enough trope in modern spy and action thrillers, but a revolutionary idea at the time. Thats right, folks; James Bond invented nuclear terrorism.


This movie contains examples of:[]

  • Actionized Sequel: There was a noticeable attempt to make the action more fast-paced and the fights more nervous and brutal than they were in Goldfinger.
  • Actor Allusion: As Bond bids farewell to Nurse Fearing, he says "Another time, another place", the name of another movie Sean Connery had starred early in his career.
  • Adaptational Attractiveness: The books' version of Largo has a freakishly large head and hands, along with pointed ears and brown hair. The film's version is Adolfo Celi, a handsome Silver Fox with a simpler, more iconic eyepatch.
  • Adaptational Heroism: SPECTRE, of all things. In the novel, they put a knife through the turned pilot's head as soon as he's played his role with no reason given. In the movie, they make a point of keeping their word and it can be inferred that he only died because — in a movie-only scene — the equivalent character tried to take advantage of the situation and demand more money than they had agreed on.
  • Adaptational Wimp: Downplayed with Domino. While she still kills Largo and saves Bond, in the novel she escaped on her own (rather than Kutz defecting and freeing her) and Bond is fighting Largo underwater, so that she both kills Largo and saves Bond from drowning.
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees: Rather awesomely, the jetpack Bond uses in the opening scene is not a made-up technology, or even special effects — it was a very real Bell Rocket Belt. It still had its sound replaced with a "more realistic" fire extinguisher noise, however.
  • America Saves the Day: The U.S. Air Force Pararescue frogmen parachuting to the rescue to help Bond stop the SPECTRE frogmen with the nuke.
  • Artificial Gill: The mini-breather. After the movie came out, a naval engineer spoke to the producers, inquiring how they managed to make the mini-breather, since he was trying to develop one himself. He was devastated by their answer: Sean Connery was actually holding his breath.
  • Artistic License Gun Safety:
    • When Bond goes to visit Largo at his home, Largo points a shotgun at his guest (Largo had been shooting skeet). Bond gently pushes it away. Of course, since Largo spends half the movie trying to kill Bond, starting shortly after this scene, it might not have been accidental...
    • The firing pin design of the Walther PPK should prevent an accidental discharge from dropping the gun, as happens when Bond is climbing onto the roof of Largo's mansion. The trigger has to be pulled all the way back for the gun to discharge.
  • Asexuality: According to Largo, his henchman Vargas...
Cquote1

 "..does not drink...does not smoke...does not make love. What do you do, Vargas?"

Cquote2
  • Asshole Victim:
    • Count Lippe, as well as the fake Major Derval and SPECTRE Number 9, the latter two of whom try unsuccessfully to embezzle money from SPECTRE they were not supposed to take (the fake Derval demands a raise in the middle of the hijacking, and the latter takes money from an offscreen drug scheme) and are killed quickly for disloyalty.
    • Quist, who after carelessly foiling his own attempt to kill Bond, gets thrown into the shark pool by Largo for his failure.
  • Attending Your Own Funeral: Colonel Jacques Bouvar, at the beginning of the movie. Bond makes sure that he will be attending his own funeral for real. Played with in that the first thing we see is the "JB" on the coffin. The camera then pans up to James Bond watching the funeral.
  • Bait and Switch Gunshot: As Largo is about to shoot Bond, Domino shoots him from behind with a harpoon gun.
  • Bandaged Face: Angelo Palazzi undergoing the plastic surgery necessary to make him look like Major Derval.
  • Big Damn Heroes: The underwater battle between Largo's SPECTRE frogmen and Coast Guard frogmen seems undecisive, until Bond zooms in with a Q-branch back thruster and turns the tide of the battle in favour of the good guys.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Fiona Volpe: Italian for "fox" (the animal), referring to her red hair and cunning as an assassin. Also Largo's ship: Disco Volante is Italian for Flying Saucer, a tip-off of the breakaway hydrofoil front section.
  • Black Comedy Rape: One of the most unnerving pieces of Values Dissonance in the series, as Bond actually blackmails a woman into having sex with him. She had been sternly rebuffing his advances the whole time beforehand.
  • The Blofeld Ploy: Blofeld electrocutes one of the henchmen sitting at his conference table for embezzling money from him (which he really was guilty off), only after grilling another (and totally innocent) henchman for the reason why their drug trafficking ring had turned in such poor profits. Showing that it applies to things other than just failing to kill a "00" Agent.
    • In the book at least, the purpose of grilling the innocent henchman was so the guilty one would relax... and therefore be touching the contact plates. And Blofeld then praised the innocent man (who'd totally trusted him to do what was right) for the calm way he'd taken the grilling.
  • Blond Guys Are Evil: Largo's henchman Vargas.
  • Bond One-Liner: "Would you mind if my friend sits this one out? She's just dead", "I think he got the point".
  • Bond Villain Stupidity:
    • Fiona Volpe successfully seduces Bond- not that it's especially difficult to do so- and doesn't do a High-Heel–Face Turn, but then monologues about it and generally screws around until Bond escapes, killing her shortly thereafter. Helga Brandt makes almost the exact same mistake a film later, though she's instead killed by her superior for being a moron.
    • Largo himself provides a classic example. He catches Bond in his pool fighting with one of his men. The mook with him is just about to shoot Bond, while Largo stops him and instead traps Bond in there to be eaten by his sharks. Naturally, Bond uses this to escape - there were no security precautions keeping Bond from swimming to the shark pool and leaving from there apart from the sharks themselves.
  • Bulletproof Human Shield: Bond is dancing with villainess Fiona Volpe when one of her henchmen attempts to shoot him in the back. Bond spins her around at the exact right time for the bullet to kill her instead.
  • Can't Kill You - Still Need You: Angelo demands an increase to his payment, smugly pointing out he's the only person who can do his job, which Count Lippe reluctantly agrees to. But when word of his behaviour reaches Blofeld, he orders Largo to eliminate Angelo and Lippe.
  • The Cartel: Discussed during a SPECTRE board meeting. When Blofeld asks Numbers 9 and 11 on why their drug-running scheme generated less than expected revenues, Number 11 blames competition from Latin American drug cartels. Blofeld is unsatisfied with the response, and determines someone had been stealing money from SPECTRE.
  • The Cavalry
    • The coast guard frogmen who are parachuted right in time to intercept Largo and his men underwater as they are carrying the bomb towards Miami.
    • Bond himself is this to the coast guard frogmen, as his underwater arrival turns the tide of the battle.
  • Chairman of the Brawl:
    • A chair is put to use in the fight between Bond and Bouvar.
    • Bond chucks a chair at a Disco Volante goon during the final fight.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: When Largo catches Domino snooping around the Disco Volante with one of Bond's gadgets, he suspects that she's working against him and tortures her with ice cubes and a cigar.
  • Color Motif: In keeping with her namesake, Domino's clothes are black and white - black swimsuit, white dress and black and white bikini.
  • Concealing Canvas: Hiding a map of top-secret locations.
  • Conveniently-Timed Attack From Behind: As Largo is about to shoot James Bond, Domino shoots him from behind with a speargun.
  • Cool Boat: The Disco Volante with its breakaway shell and hydrofoils.
  • Cool Guns:
    • James Bond briefly uses a Browning Auto-5 to shoot clay pigeons with Largo.
    • Largo's henchmen carry MP40s.
  • Cool Plane:
    • The Avro Vulcan nuclear bomber that SPECTRE hijacks.
    • Special mention goes to the modified B-17 that picks up Bond and Domino at the end — it belonged to a CIA front company and was used for extraction on at least one Real Life spy operation. It was also used to develop the Fulton STARS sky hook.
  • Cool Shades: The Bahamas being a sunny locale more than one character wears one: Bond, Leiter, Vargas.
  • Cosmopolitan Council: The leadership of SPECTRE, which includes an Italian (#2), an Englishman (#5), a Frenchman (#10), a Japanese man (#7), and an American (#11). Though he doesn't speak, an Indian appears on the council as well.
  • Creepy Crossdresser: In the pre-titles sequence, SPECTRE agent Jacques Bouvar fakes his death and attends his own funeral disguised as a woman. Bond catches on (thanks to his not letting one of the men around him open a car door for him; it was the '60s) and he has to fight in the dress.
  • Cyanide Pill: Bond's assistant Paula Kaplan takes one rather than face interrogation by SPECTRE thugs. In a cruel irony, Bond would have arrived in time to save her if she hadn't.
  • Dark Action Girl: SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe.
  • Deadfoot Leadfoot: An aquatic variant as Largo's dead or dying body forces the Disco Voltane to run explosively aground.
  • Deadly Gas: Palazzi kills Derval with a pistol firing a spray of gamma gas, then later plugs a small cannister of the same gas into the oxygen supply of the crew of the Vulcan, after first switching to his own independent oxygen tank.
  • Death by Materialism: Angelo Pallazi, the SPECTRE agent assigned to kill and replace Major Francois Derval, demands an increase in his payment, smugly pointing out he's the only person able to do his job. But when word of his behaviour reaches the top of SPECTRE, Blofeld tells Largo to eliminate Angelo after his job is done. Or perhaps they were going to get rid of him anyway.
  • Decomposite Character: In both the novel and the movie, SPECTRE hires a pilot to steal a pair of atomic bombs. However, the movie changes their agent from Giuseppe Petacchi, a single pilot from World War II who is willing to sell out for a high enough price, and splits him into François Derval, NATO pilot, and the thoroughly-evil Angelo, a SPECTRE agent trained to kill him and take his place.
  • Diabolical Mastermind: Emilio Largo designed the NATO Project. Blofeld is also seen at the beginning of the movie, coordinating the various activities of SPECTRE.
  • Dissonant Serenity: While the others are visibly sweating, Largo isn't the slightest bit perturbed by the electrocution of a fellow SPECTRE council member.
  • Distressed Damsel:
    • Bond's fellow agent Paula is kidnapped by Largo's goons and taken to his estate to be interrogated.
    • Domino also qualifies, especially toward the end of the movie.
  • Do Not Adjust Your Set: A downplayed version; Blofeld has a taped message of his demands delivered to 10 Downing Street, and the Double 0's listen to it during their Mission Briefing.
  • Don't Try This At Home: That lovely underwater sex scene with Domino? Um yeah, try that in real life and you might float to the surface unexpectedly fast and give yourself and your partner matching embolisms.
  • The Dragon: Vargas, to Emilio Largo.
    • Also, Fiona Volpe.
    • Technically, Largo himself is the Dragon to Blofeld.
  • Dressing as the Enemy: Bond steals a black wetsuit and hood to masquerade as a SPECTRE diver. Subverted when despite there being only a small part of his face visible through his face mask (and then only when looking almost directly at him), Largo still recognizes him.
  • Due to the Dead:
    • During the SPECTRE meeting, Blofeld delivers a brief, but sincere eulogy for Col. Jacuqes Bouvar.
    • After Bond has removed the bandages from Derval's corpse and discovered his identity, he solemnly covers up the dead man with a blanket.
  • Empty Quiver: One of the earlier examples, and possibly the most definite. SPECTRE hijacks two atomic bombs, and holds the major countries of the West to a hefty ransom, threatening to destroy two major cities.
  • Enemy Mine:
    • During the big underwater fight at the end, when sharks start to show up the SPECTRE frogmen and their opponents stop fighting each other and join forces to attack the sharks.
    • Kutz is so disturbed to see Largo torturing Domino that he helps her escape.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Kutze is so disturbed to see Largo torturing Domino that he helps helps her escape.
  • Everyone Looks Sexier If French: Domino (which is an Italian in the novel, but Claudine Auger turned her into a Frenchwoman).
  • Evil Plan: Emilio Largo's plan is to steal two atomic bombs and try to get ransom from the U.S. by threatening to launch them.
  • Evil Redhead: Again, Fiona Volpe.
  • Eyepatch of Power: Emilio Largo. It helps that he's one of the most charismatic Bond villains ever.
  • The Faceless: Ernst Stavro Blofeld, leader of SPECTRE. As usual.
  • Failsafe Failure: Count Lippe tries to kill Bond by turning up the setting on a spine-stretching exercise machine he's strapped into. Bond blacks out and is only saved by Pat happening to enter the room just in time. Leaving viewers to wonder why the hell the machine was even designed to be able to go that fast.
  • Fantasy Helmet Enforcement: James Bond dons a helmet before going to fly around in the Bell Rocket Belt. The filmmakers objected to the helmet, but the stunt man refused to fly the rocket without it.
  • Fiery Redhead: Fiona Volpe
  • Five-Bad Band:
  • Five-Man Band:
  • Foreshadowing: After Bond kills Vargas with a spear from a speargun, Domino says, "It should have been Largo." Guess how Largo is killed in the climax and by who?
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: During the underwater recovery of the bombs, one of the warning labels seen prominently on the side says "Handle like eggs".
  • Gender Flip: A passing example, but the novel specifically mentions that anyone who caught a glimpse of SPECTRE would note that even roles normally filled by women in the time period were played by men; the movie has at least one woman ready to courier No. 1's orders.
  • Harpoon Gun: The climactic battle is fought by at least fifty men armed with harpoon guns. The use of a harpoon gun on Vargas leads to the immortal line, “I think he got the point”. And Largo is killed this way by Domino.
  • Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: Q is dressed like one when he equips Bond in the Bahamas.
  • Have a Gay Old Time: "Is there any other reason, besides your enthusiasm for watersports?"
  • Heel Face Turn / Helpful Mook: Dr. Kutze, who throws the bomb fuses overboard and frees Domino.
    • Averted however in the case of Fiona Volpe, who mocks Bond's presumption that she'll go over to his side after sleeping with him (probably a deliberate subversion of Pussy Galore's Heel Face Turn in Goldfinger.)
  • Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Averted with great prejudice on the set. Someone said, to the technician who was about to perform the Bell/Textron rocket-belt jump, that James Bond would look cooler if he didn't wear a helmet. The technician said to him, "Nuh-uh!" and kept the helmet on.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Bond's fellow agent Paula is kidnapped by Largo's goons and taken to his estate to be tortured for information. She takes a Cyanide Pill and kills herself so she can't be made to betray Bond and the operation.
  • High Heel Face Turn: Lampshaded and subverted with SPECTRE's "Black Widow" Fiona Volpe, who warns Bond not to expect that from her. Bond, probably because he's a bed-hopping bastard, actually shrugs this off with "Well, you can't win them all". Volpe is actually the first Bond girl this doesn't work on, but it turned out he wasn't actually trying it on her in the first place.
  • Honor Before Reason: When standing behind a car with a woman and being shot at, Bond jogs to her side, opens the door, and then all the way around the front of the car to the opposite door (which she doesn't even reach over to open for him). Apparently being chivalrous is more important than quickly getting to safety. Either that or he knows he has a character shield.
  • Image Song: The title song by Tom Jones describes Bond perfectly.
Cquote1

 He always runs while others walk

He acts, while other men just talk

He thinks that the fight is worth it all

So he strikes, like thunderball...

Cquote2
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Harpoons are the weapon of choice in that movie.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Averted just once, when Bond gets shot in the leg trying to lose pursuers in the Junkanoo parade. It's not even a Game-Breaking Injury, to add insult to that.
  • Imposter Forgot One Detail: Colonel Jacques Bouvar disguises himself as a rich widow. Bond spots him when he opens his car door himself instead of waiting for the chauffeur to do it.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: A particularly weird one, where one of Largo's henchmen is aiming at Bond as he dances with Fiona. Bond spins around at the last moment so that he hits Fiona instead...right between two of Bond's fingers!
  • Incredibly Long Note: Thunder-BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLL!!!!
  • It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans: The Bahamas Junkanoo festival. Notably, those scenes had to be shot at another time of the year, so the film crew convinced the locals to stage an out-of-season Junkanoo for them.
  • Jet Pack:
    • Bond uses one in the opening to escape from Bouvar's mansion. Bonus points for this not being a special effect, but was an actual flight by a Bell Aerosystems Rocketpack provided for use in the film by the US Air Force.
    • During the underwater battle, Bond uses a Q-branch back thruster to go faster.
  • Just Plane Wrong: When Bond dives the sunken Vulcan bomber, he enters the cockpit through a small door via the bomb bay. It is not possible to access the bomb bay from the cockpit due to being separated by bulkheads, the nose gear and a fuel tank.
  • Know When to Fold'Em: This is only Bond film in which the villain's henchmen actually surrender after the battle in the climax. If you look closely, you can see them being taken into custody by the Coast Guard while Bond is chasing Largo on the surface.
  • Leave the Camera Running: The underwater battles are long. A common consensus today it's that while in 1965 it was awesome, after aquatic shooting became kinda commonplace they're really overdrawn.
  • Make It Look Like an Accident: Bond and Lippe try to dispose of each other this way in the health spa.
  • Man Behind the Man: As in From Russia with Love, Blofeld is the real villain, running things from the background.
  • Milkman Conspiracy: The "purely philanthtopic" International Brotherhood for the Assistance of Stateless Persons is actually a front for SPECTRE.
  • Missing Trailer Scene: In the movie, it cuts as Volpe is taking Bond's shirt off, but the trailer shows him saying "The things I do for England" while she does so (the line ended up on You Only Live Twice as Bond is undressing Helga Brandt).
  • Modesty Towel: Bond encounters Fiona in the bath, and she asks him to hand her something to wear. Bond hands her a pair of high heels. She eventually uses a face towel.
  • Moment Killer: Bond and the physiotherapist Patricia are just about to get it on when Bond sees the ambulance bringing the dead pilot back to the health spa and has to go check it out. Patricia is not happy.
  • Mythology Gag: Leiter killing a shark with a speargun could be a nod to him losing an arm and a leg to one in the novel Live and Let Die. Given what happend to him in Licence to Kill, it's grimly ironic.
  • No OSHA Compliance: Shrublands has a back-stretching machine. Patricia straps Bond into it, turns it on and leaves the room. Count Lippe comes in and turns the machine to maximum setting, which nearly kills Bond. There's no reason why that machine should be capable of doing that. (The same could be said for the steam bath Bond tries to parboil Lippe with in return.)
  • A Nuclear Error: Well, Atomic, not Nuclear. And considering a Newsnight report, not A Nuclear Error. It's still hard to believe British air-dropped atomic bombs were protected by bicycle locks.
  • Old School Chivalry: It's also a slight plot point in the opening sequence. Bond realizes that the supposedly dead assassin is masquerading as his own widow when the veiled "woman" opens her own car door, rather than waiting for any of the surrounding men to do it.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: Bond takes a bullet right into his ankle and still manages to run and escape his pursuers, barely limping through the Junkanoo parade. He stops at a bathroom, pulls up his pants and ties a handkerchief around his ankle and he's good as new. Of course, the very next day when he swims out to Largo's island in his swimming shorts, his leg doesn't even have a scratch on it.
  • Pin Pulling Teeth: While Vargas is dropping hand grenades over the side of the Disco Volante in an attempt to kill a scuba-diving Bond, he pulls out the pins with his teeth.
  • A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: Discussed in everything but its precise form, where in the text, had Emilio Largo been born and lived in the age of piracy, he'd have been a cutthroat pirate, but with his ruthlessness balanced with an aversion to being a notorious dastard. None of this is in the film, but... he does wear an eyepatch.
  • Playing Both Sides: The SPECTRE meeting shows them distributing Red Chinese narcotics in the US while simultaneously killing an antimatter specialist who defected to the Soviets on behalf of the French Foreign Ministry.
  • Reality Is Unrealistic:
    • The Bell Rocket Belt Bond uses had its natural sound replaced by a "more realistic" fire-extinguisher sound.
    • The method Bond uses to escape at the end is the Fulton Surface to Air Recovery System, which was dismissed as the fakest Bond gadget yet at the film's release.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Bond has no problem walking around Nassau in a short-sleeved pink shirt.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: When Bond tells M and another government official that he discovered Derval's dead body around the same time he was supposedly flying the hijacked bomber the official with M dismisses Bond's story as fantastical, only to be sternly interrupted by M, who explains that if 007 claims to have seen Derval's corpse then that's enough to begin a serious investigation into the matter.
  • Red Herring: The first shot in the movie is a coffin with the monogram "JB" on it. For a moment viewers might think Bond is supposed to be dead; the woman Bond is with even lampshades this.
  • Revealing Coverup: SPECTRE's attempt to kill Bond, which risked alerting his superiors to their presence. Later, Fiona tries to subvert this, saying that killing Bond would only confirm that the bombs are in Nassau.
  • Right-Hand-Cat: Blofeld's pet Persian.
  • Ripped from the Headlines: In 1963 a gang of robbers stopped and looted a Royal Mail train. One item reported at the SPECTRE board meeting is a consultancy fee of a quarter-million pounds for the job.
  • Samus Is a Girl: A motorcyclist kills Count Lippe driving a car and rides away. After running the cycle into a ditch, the cyclist takes off the helmet and reveals that she's SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe.
  • Sauna of Death: Bond locks Count Lippe in a Turkish bath. He is able to get out offscreen, but his bungling with both Bond and Palazzi gets him blown up by Volpe.
  • Sexual Extortion: Pat coolly rebuffs Bond's flirtations, and is all business in her dealings with our boy James. But when she leaves Bond alone— and defenceless— in some sort of back-stretchy machine (that just so happens to be named after a medieval torture device), things take a turn for the worse when an enemy comes to kill him by turning the machine on too high. The therapist comes back, apologizing profusely, and begging Bond not to report her for leaving him. Bond tells her he can be convinced to keep this their little secret. This is Played for Laughs, and is in fact one of the rare cases the film is less politically correct than the book; in the book he agrees to keep silent without a fuss and they do it perfectly consensually later on
  • Sexy Discretion Shot: As Bond and Volpe are about to have sex, it cuts to Junkanoo. And before that, Bond and Patricia the nurse after he strips her down in the sauna.
  • Shark Pool: On Largo's estate, and the final resting place of Quist. Bond later fights another henchman in it, with predictable results; he stabs the man in the stomach, and the sharks, attracted to the blood, attack the injured henchman, allowing Bond to escape.
  • Shower of Love: Actually a Sauna Of Love, between Bond and a nurse at Shrublands.
  • The Smurfette Principle: It's hard to clearly see her during the briefing, but MI6 agent 003 is a woman. Not until The World Is Not Enough would another female Double-0 agent be visible at such a meeting.
  • Storming the Castle: U.S. divers vs. SPECTRE frogmen in an undersea battle.
  • Surgical Impersonation: The crux of SPECTRE's plot, having Angelo Palazzi get plastic surgery to resemble NATO pilot François Derval, who Palazzi then murders and replaces.
  • Theme Tune Cameo: Weirdly, a rejected theme: the song playing in the club where Fiona is shot is Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the song originally intended for the titles (the producers didn't like a Non-Appearing Title, so one actually titled "Thunderball" was comissioned).
  • Title Drop: "Thunderball" is the name of the operation to retrieve the missing nuclear weapons.
  • Too Dumb to Live:
    • What's more stupid? Trying to embezzle money from a man as infamously ruthless as Blofeld or thinking you could actually get away with it?
    • Angelo deciding it's a brilliant idea to, at the last minute, try to hold out for more money from a group clearly ready to kill anyone to get their way. It's even hinted they were always going to eliminate him once he finished the job and he just gave them a better excuse to do it.
  • Torture Technician: Largo claims to be able to do horrible things with just a lit cigar and a bucket of ice. We have no reason to not believe him.
  • Two-Person Pool Party: Bond and Domino have one in the ocean, underwater (thanks to scuba gear). In Real Life it would would probably result in the death or injury of one or both participants.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The SPECTRE members are horrifed when Blofeld executes the treacherous operative - apart from Largo, who's casually going through his papers and treats it as just another day at the office.
  • Villain Ball: Count Lippe's attempt to kill Bond, which endangered SPECTRE's operation as it turned out to be a Revealing Cover-Up. It could be considered justified because he suspected (rightly) that Bond was suspicious of him, and knowing that Bond was the Arch-Enemy of the organization might have firstly incorrectly (but reasonably) assumed that Bond was actually there to investigate him (or worse, their plot), and secondly might be acting on "kill on sight" pre-orders. Had he succeeded there wouldn't be a problem, and Bond was starting to look into him anyway after seeing his tattoo.
  • Villainous Crossdresser: In the cold open, SPECTRE agent Jacques Bouvar fakes his death and attends his own funeral disguised as a woman. Bond catches on (thanks to his not letting one of the men around him open a car door for him; it was the '60s) and he has to fight in the dress.
  • Villainous Rescue: Count Lippe is blown up before he can kill Bond; the trope is more overt in the novel. In the movie Bond is about to take out Lippe with his Bond car gadgets when Lippe's car suddenly explodes, destroyed by Fiona Volpe's motorbike.
  • "The Villain Sucks" Song: The less explicit, but appear to be talking about a man who "looks at the world and wants it all", and "strikes like Thunderball". The whole point of that song was that it could be either about Bond or Largo.
  • Wacky Wayside Tribe: Bond's killing of Colonel Jacques Bouvar at the start of the movie.
  • War Room: Ken Adam designed two - the cold, metallic and black SPECTRE conference room, and MI 6's more classical style conference room with huge windows and tapestries.
  • Weaponized Car: The Aston Martin DB5 makes another appearance in the pre-title sequence. Fiona Volpe rides a BSA Lightning motorcycle with a missile launcher that she uses to kill Count Lippe.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Domino is freed by Dr. Ladislav Kutze, Largo's nuclear physicist who commits a Heel Face Turn. When Bond and Domino escape Largo's boat near the end of the film, Bond first throws Kutze overboard wearing a lifebuoy telling him that it's never too late to learn to swim. Seconds later, Bond and Domino are picked up by the helicopters while the henchman just disappears.
  • You Have Failed Me:
    • Blofeld electrocutes a SPECTRE member for embezzlement after sweating his partner on their drug-smuggling ring. Most of the other members present are stunned.
    • Largo throws Quist into his shark pool after Bond sends him packing.
    • Count Lippe, tries and fails to kill Bond. He is then killed himself, for failing, because this attempt is what made Bond realize something was up, and for hiring an impersonator who demanded a raise in the middle of SPECTRE's operation and threatened to derail it if they didn't comply (that man is killed himself by Largo). It also introduces Fiona, who is apparently tasked with killing SPECTRE agents who fail.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Angelo Palazzi, the impersonator, demanded a raise immediately before his mission of stealing the atomic bombs. He smugly points out that with so much time and effort already spent on the plot, there's no way SPECTRE would walk away from it now, certainly not over a pay dispute. His boss, Emilio Largo, was not pleased and kills him right after he delivers the goods. Whether or not this was always the plan, or only done because he demanded more money is unclear.
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