Trivia: Red Grant has no dialogue until he first meets Bond. He first speaks in a rich, upper-class English accent. After Grant has revealed his true identity to Bond, his English accent changes into a lower-class Irish accent as he explains the SPECTRE background plot.
Trivia: The actor intended to play Captain Nash, whose place Grant takes at the Zagreb train station, didn't actually show up for filming. Location manager Bill Hill performed the role instead.
Trivia: When Bay is about to kill the man that was hanging on the movie banner, look carefully at the names on the banner. The names are Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the producers of the Bond movies.
Trivia: On the train passing Bond is an old man with a walking stick. The man is Ian Fleming, the writer of the Bond books.
Trivia: Originally, "Thunderball" was to follow "Dr. No". Then, the producers read a list of then-President Kennedy's top ten favourite books, and among them was "From Russia With Love". They decided to make that film next to cash in on this endorsement.
Trivia: The wife of producer Harry Saltzman can be seen leaning out the window on the Orient Express, next to the car in which Robert Shaw ("Red Grant") was riding.
Trivia: Director Terence Young's wife is the lady who appears on a bridge in Venice, filming Bond and Tatiana as they pass beneath in a gondola.
Trivia: Pedro Armendariz was battling terminal cancer during filming and barely managed to finish the film before he was hospitalized. He committed suicide just weeks after completing his work on the 007 film.
Trivia: There were some problems with the shooting of the rat scene in the Istanbul sewers. At first, white lab rats were considered. In order to make them brown, they were coated with chocolate powder; but the rats found the substance too delicious and spent their shots licking each other off. Finally, real rats were used, but they went amok in the studio. Sean Connery relieved the situation by simply opening the door.
Trivia: During the chess game between Kronsteen and McAdams, the position that appears on the board was taken from a real game played between Boris Spassky and David Bronstein in 1960. The game is well-known amongst chess players all over the world. Spassky won the game in brilliant fashion, and it was his actual moves that Kronsteen plays during the end of the game.
Trivia: The actor playing the Bond double strangled by Red Grant in the pre-credits sequence naturally resembled Sean Connery so much that the scene was re-shot with another actor with a moustache.
Trivia: When Bond and Sylvia are in the boat with their picnic another boat goes past and says something. Bond then says something to Sylvia. They have the radio on and listen to the song that is playing. It is the movie's theme song. (00:17:15)
Trivia: According to the book "Death of a President" by William Raymond Manchester, this was the last motion picture John F. Kennedy ever saw, on 20 November 1963, in the White House.
Trivia: During the boat chase towards the end of the film, the explosion got completely out of control, burning Walter Gotell's eyelids and seriously injuring three stuntmen.
Trivia: Due to his distinct facial features making such an impression on the director Terence Young, Vladek Sheybal was cast in the role of Kronsteen without even taking a screen test.
Trivia: Although it lasts for only a few minutes on screen, the fight between Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in the train compartment took three weeks to film and most of it was performed by the actors themselves.
Trivia: Daniela Bianchi was dubbed throughout the film by British actress Barbara Jefford, as she spoke almost no English and spoke her lines phonetically.
Trivia: During the helicopter sequence towards the end of the film, the inexperienced pilot flew too close to Sean Connery, almost killing him.
Trivia: The hand writing "From Russia, with Love" on the picture of Tatiana Romanova does not belong to Sean Connery, but rather director Terence Young.
Chosen answer: It would, yes. Also I am to understand that it's his sense of humour.
Alan Keddie