Filming of James Bond in the 1970s Filming of James Bond in the 1970s Films made in the 1970s featuring the character of James Bond included "Diamonds Are Forever", "Live and Let Die", "The Man with the Golden Gun", "The Spy Who Loved Me", and "Moonraker". Filming began on 5 April 1971, with the South African scenes actually shot in the desert near Las Vegas, and finished on 13 August 1971. The film was shot primarily in the US, with locations including the Los Angeles International Airport, Universal City Studios and eight hotels of Las Vegas. Besides the Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, other places in England were
Motifs in the James Bond film series with rockets going astray. Similarly Bond's anti-heroin mission in "Live and Let Die" coincided with President Nixon's 1972 declaration of a War on Drugs, whilst "GoldenEye" played against the backdrop of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. For the series of Bond novels, Fleming realised that without threatening villains Bond seemed less heroic: this tradition of strong literary villain was brought across to the screen in the Eon series. The third Bond film, "Goldfinger", set a pattern for having a main villain with a loyal and dangerous henchman, a model which was followed in subsequent films. Whilst Bond scholar Glenn Yeffeth