It is an astonishing 40 years since the release of Roger Moore’s sixth James Bond adventure, Octopussy, and – as part of the birthday celebrations – the JBIFC thought it would be appropriate to look back at the incredible work of the stunt artists on the movie. One of the most daring stunts carried out during the filming of Octopussy back in the autumn (fall) of 1982 involved 007 running along the top of a fast-moving railway carriage and hanging precariously onto the side as the train hurtles along through the countryside towards the West German frontier. The stunt was filmed at the Nene Valley Railway (NVR), near Peterborough, in the British county of Cambridgeshire.
In 2016 the BBC’s popular One Show investigated how this breathtaking stunt was arranged. One of the roving reporters for the show, comedian Gyles Brandeth, visited the railway and the original locations for the Octopussy NVR filming. Working alongside the Icon Films company, Gyles headed a two-part report for the One Show where two stuntmen reproduced part of the original Octopussy stuntwork shot at the NVR. His report saw him posing as Bond in the Mercedez car at the NVR’s Wansford station, and also included a conversation with the late Sir Roger Moore, who was, of course, James Bond in Octopussy. There were also some clips from the movie, including a key stunt shot at the NVR’s Wansford Station. The two-part report was transmitted in the 23rd November, 2016, edition of the One Show, and Sir Roger – looking back on his memories of the NVR filming (he filmed there with the movie’s First Unit in September, 1982) – took the opportunity to pay generous tribute to his hard-working stunt-double, the late Martin Grace (1942-2010). Roger also gave details about the serious accident that Grace suffered while carrying out one of the dangerous stunts at the NVR.
This was especially interesting to the JBIFC, as the Club had one of its members (Steve) on the scene throughout the First Unit’s filming at the NVR in 1982, and also for much of the Second Unit’s work (the Second Unit continued filming at the NVR while the main crew flew off to India). In fact, the NVR filming for Octopussy formed the basis of one of the JBIFC’s earliest location filming reports in 007 Magazine, edited by the Club’s founder and President Ross Hendry.
Stuntmen Royale
Stunt-work was an essential ingredient to Octopussy, including on the location filming at the NVR, which saw various stunt artists having to climb under the train carriages, or fall down a wooden stairwell, or run along the top of the train, or even fall from the train onto the nearby rail embankment. Much of this was overseen during the first week of main NVR filming by the legendary stunt arranger Bob Simmons. Based in a caravan trailer at the side of Wansford Station (the station which doubled as Karl-Marx-Stadt), Simmons was especially involved in the planning of a stunt which involved using a large airgun and catapulting Bond’s Mercedes into mid-air over the railway line at Wansford bridge (after the car had been hit by the train in the movie).
Some of they key stunt artists and doubles involved in the NVR filming at various stages included Romo Gorrara (stunt double for Steven Berkoff’s General Orlov), Reg Harding and Jim Dowdall (stunt doubles for Kabir Bedi’s Gobinda), Dickie Graydon (a stunt double for one of the Meyer twins), and Wayne Michaels (who doubled as Bond). There was also some key stunt driving work by Rocky Taylor (who doubled as Bond), who was often called the ‘Stunt King’ by his many fans.
However, after the First Unit, under the direction of John Glen, had completed its location filming on the railway, using three of the main stations and a European locomotive, many of the key stunts involving the train and the car sequences were shot by the Second Unit over the subsequent weeks. Interestingly, some of the car chase material involving Bond’s Mercedes ended up on the cutting-room floor, including one or two ‘comedy’ visuals. Stunt artist Martin Grace played an instrumental part in this stunt work, both as a stunt coordinator and in carrying out some of the key stunts himself, especially those involving the train. Much of this was high-risk work, particularly when it involved a locomotive moving at some speed down the railway. Unfortunately, on one particular day, when Martin Grace was hanging off the side of the train carriage as it sped along, he hit a concrete post and suffered serious injuries. Martin said at the time: ‘The accident happened when I was running along the tops of carriages and swinging down the sides. I hit a concrete post with iron railings by the track’. He ended up in Peterborough General Hospital for several weeks with a fractured pelvis.
As soon as Roger Moore was informed of the accident, the Bond star had quickly headed back to Peterborough to visit his close friend in the hospital. Martin, who had a great sense of humour, was apparently very popular with the nurses and other staff, and he and Roger made a great double act when the star visited the hospital. Moreover, despite his injuries, and ever the professional, Martin was determined to get back to work and resume his career as soon as possible. And, against all the odds, he did precisely this.
Martin, who sadly passed away in 2010, had been involved with the world of Bond as a stunt artist since You Only Live Twice in 1967. He had originally been spotted by the Bond stunt arranger Bob Simmons when Martin was in the famous (and ‘Bondish’) Milk Tray adverts on British TV in the 1960s. He became Roger Moore’s main stunt-double, and he and Roger became close friends. He was involved in nearly every Moore Bond film, and also doubled for the star on his non-Bond movies, such as The Wild Geese, North Sea Hijack, Escape to Athena, The Sea Wolves and The Naked Face.
All Time High
Martin once revealed that his own favourite Bond action sequence was the work he did on the pre-credits to For Your Eyes Only in 1981, a sequence shot at an old gasworks in east London. The daring Irishman was often perched 400 feet up in the air, hanging on to the side of a helicopter which had been ‘taken over’ by Blofeld.
The two main stuntmen who reproduced the Octopussy train stunt for the 2016 One Show described how modern-day health and safety rules are very different from the guidelines that governed stunt work back in the 1980s. What stuntmen could do back then, including on Octopussy, would be very tightly regulated today. In a sense, this makes Martin Grace’s work back then – where he leapt from carriage to carriage atop the NVR train and ducked out of the way of an oncoming bridge at high speed – even more astounding. In many ways, stunt artists are the great unsung heroes behind the scenes on the Bond movies, but their incredible work has been recognised more and more in recent years (see, for example, the excellent ‘Behind the Stunts’ web and vlog site), and deservedly so. Like 007, a great stunt is forever.
Martin Grace at work on the NVR during the 1982 Octopussy filming