Weekend Whipper: James Bond Takes a Mega Whip in “For Your Eyes Only”

While Sir Roger Moore is probably only the third best Bond (1. Connery, 2. Brosnan. Duh.), he’s clearly the best climber of the bunch.

In his fifth outing as James Bond in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, Sir Roger Moore cruises around the Mediterranean, hitting Italy, Albania and Greece.

In the latter he battles baddies in Meteora, a stunning landscape of weathered sandstone and conglomerate towers. After evidently rope-soloing to the top of one of these towers, one such bad-guy kicks him over the edge, resulting in a massive fall.

Stuntman Rick Sylvester tapped in for Moore during this scene. According to trivia at IMDB.com, “Sir Roger Moore’s vertigo made the rock face climax especially hard to do. Moore has said that he took a small amount of Valium, and drank a tall glass of beer before some of the scary climbing sequences, which helped him through the close-up shots.”

The stunt team was nervous about the force generated by the fall. Luckily, with a little special rigging, they were able to ensure a fairly soft catch for Sylvester (while Roger Moore likely looked on in a semi-stoned stupor).

While campy to the max and laughable in many ways, one has to respect Bond’s self-rescue skills here. Prussiking up with his shoelaces? That far? Well done, 007, well done.

Happy Friday and climb safe this weekend!

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