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
O.K. Connery "flair and skill with which the Bond films are made. The script is labored, the direction slow and the acting is barely adequate." In Phil Hardy's book "Science Fiction" (1984), a review noted that "though it's stylishly mounted, the result is a routine Italian spy romp." In an interview in 1996, Lois Maxwell said that Sean Connery, when he learned that she would join the cast, got very angry and started screaming: "You have betrayed me!" and he forgave her when she saved Neil from a fool at the press conference. As a "James Bond rip-off", reaction to the film