The Underwater Battle That Took an Oscar No Other Bond Film Would Ever Win

Sixty years ago, a film crew attempted something no major movie had done before: stage a full-scale battle at the bottom of the ocean. No CGI. No safety nets. Just cameras, divers, and the open water off Nassau.

That film was Thunderball, the fourth James Bond adventure, starring Sean Connery. And the gamble paid off in a way the franchise has never repeated.

A Shoot Bigger Than Anything Bond Had Tried Before

Production began Feb. 18, 1965, in Paris, with newcomer Claudine Auger cast as Domino Derval on the very same day filming started. The crew spent over a month in France before relocating to Nassau, Bahamas, on March 24.

Once there, the scale of the operation exploded. A New York Times report from that April documented 35 scenes filmed across Nassau and its surrounding islands — including a lavish nighttime party sequence that pulled in roughly 200 local socialites as extras.

But the real challenge was still ahead.

Building a Battle Underwater, By Hand

Starting May 10, 1965, the production turned its focus to the film’s signature sequence: a climactic underwater firefight between SPECTRE operatives and U.S. Coast Guard divers. Close-up shots of Connery and co-star Adolfo Celi came first. Then the film’s main unit flew home to the UK — while a specialized underwater team, led by Ricou Browning, stayed behind for two more weeks.

Browning wasn’t new to unconventional filmmaking. He’d previously played the title creature in Creature from the Black Lagoon. For Thunderball, he coordinated more than 45 divers to choreograph a fight scene entirely submerged in open water, using specialized underwater camera rigs from Ivan Tors’ Nassau studio.

The final sequence combined 18 separate underwater setups into 83 individual shots — a level of technical complexity virtually unheard of in 1965.

What We Know

Filming ran from February to July 1965, with the film released in U.S. theaters that December
Claudine Auger’s casting was announced the same day filming began in Paris
The production moved to Nassau, Bahamas, on March 24, 1965
An April 1965 New York Times report confirmed 35 scenes shot in the Bahamas, including a party scene with roughly 200 local extras
The underwater battle sequence began filming May 10, 1965, using more than 45 divers over several weeks
The final underwater battle involved 18 sequences and 83 individual shots
Thunderball became the highest-grossing Bond film to date, a record it held until 1973
John Stears won the 1966 Academy Award for Best Special Visual Effects for the film

Why This Matters

Long before drones, CGI water simulations, or motion capture, a film crew put dozens of human divers into open ocean and asked them to perform a fully choreographed battle on camera — with no way to fake it, and no way to easily undo a mistake.

It’s a reminder of just how much practical risk and human coordination went into the blockbusters that shaped modern moviemaking. Every underwater action sequence in film today, in some way, inherited lessons from what this crew figured out by trial and error off the coast of Nassau.

The Bond franchise would go on to make 24 more films. Only one of them ever won an Oscar for visual effects.

This one.