SPECTRE Irma Bunt, Blofeld's assistant, in his short story "Blast From the Past", which is a sequel to "You Only Live Twice". In the Eon Productions James Bond series, which began in 1962 with "Dr. No", SPECTRE plays a more prominent role. The organisation is first mentioned in "Dr. No" as the organisation for which Dr. No works. This was changed from Fleming's novels, which had Dr. No working for the USSR. In the films, SPECTRE usually replaced SMERSH as the main villains, although there is a brief reference to SMERSH in the second Eon Bond film, "From Russia with Love"
James Bond in film in the Academy Award-winning song "The Windmills of Your Mind"—and was performed by Lani Hall. Fleming's estate, financially backed by Eon Productions and MGM, made a final attempt to block the film in the High Courts in London in the spring of 1983, but this was thrown out by the court and "Never Say Never Again" was permitted to proceed. When "Never Say Never Again" was released, it grossed $9.72 million ($ million in dollars) on its first weekend, which was reported to be "the best opening record of any "James Bond" film" up to that point and surpassing "Octopussy"s