On Saturday 24th October 2009, a presentation and discussion about the eleventh James Bond film, “Moonraker”, was organized at the “Salon des series” by the French Association “Sérialement vôtre”. « Moonraker” is the only James Bond film to have been co-produced by Great Britain and France. Thirty years after the film was released, the French producer, Jean-Pierre Spiri-Mercanton and the French operator Henri Habans explained to us how the British film industry chose to co-produce “Moonraker” with France (under the auspices of United Artists France) and how filming was organized.

France was initially contacted by United Artists England to produce « For Your Eyes Only ». This film did not require many studios. The “For Your Eyes Only” project rapidly became the “Moonraker” project because of the unexpected success of “Star Wars”. However, France was not chosen for its studios in the first instance. Eon Productions (the producers of the Bond films) were in fact obliged to invest in making the French studios operational by equipping them with sets and thermoforming workshops.

“Moonraker” really had to be shot outside Great Britain because the new Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, was taxing artists’ income at 85%. Roger Moore left his native country to settle in France and Switzerland. Both he and the Director Lewis Gilbert were Francophiles and suggested to Albert Broccoli (of Eon Productions) that the film should be shot in France (although Ireland was also considered).

Fortunately, there was a man available at United Artists France (Jean-Pierre Spiri-Mercanton) who had earlier been working on Fred Zinnemann’s film with Jane Fonda, “Julia”, which had a huge budget. This was a reassuring guarantee for the British producers. Jean-Pierre Spiri-Mercanton succeeded in uniting the three Parisian studios (Boulogne, Billancourt and Epinay) to make filming possible and a new studio was built at Bry-sur-Marne.

Everybody spoke English on the set and there were no communication difficulties. Henri Habans told the audience at the “Salon des series” that filming “Moonraker” was the only time he ever saw film crews (both English and French) shed tears when it was time to say goodbye. They overspent the budget (as for all Bond films) and the dollar’s devaluation caused it to increase to 34 million $. Albert Broccoli was only irritated by one matter related to France and this was the difficulty in obtaining the necessary filming authorizations from the Ministries.

Finally, Henri Habans recalled nostalgically how Roger Moore had helped the technicians in the jungle by carrying the base of a 35 kg camera. He remembered the close friendship between Albert Broccoli and Claude Renoir, the French Director of Photography. Claude Renoir is renowned for his photography in “The Spy who Loved Me” but his name is not included in the credits of “Moonraker”. Nevertheless, he did work on the film’s photography but was unable to be on the set because he was starting to go blind.