James Bond in film process. Connery, however, was somewhat resigned to the project, lacking the enthusiasm he sported for "Thunderball". A press conference on his arrival had been tense, "soured by aggressive questioning of Connery's crumpled, jet-lagged appearance". Primary and secondary photography finished in December; the special effects filming for the space scenes were undertaken between January and March 1967, prior to the film's release on 12 June. The cinema posters for the film stated "Sean Connery IS James Bond", to distance the Eon-produced picture from the independent "Casino Royale", which had been released two months earlier. However, during the production, Connery announced that
Sean Connery Pacific" at the Opera House, Manchester over the Christmas period of 1954, Connery developed a serious interest in the theatre through American actor Robert Henderson who lent him copies of the Henrik Ibsen works "Hedda Gabler", "The Wild Duck", and "When We Dead Awaken", and later listed works by the likes of Marcel Proust, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce and William Shakespeare for him to digest. Henderson urged him to take elocution lessons and got him parts at the Maida Vale Theatre in London. In addition, he had already begun pursuing a film career, having been