A potiential Thunderball plot hole....

Thomas Crown

When I was watching Thunderball recently I had paid special attention to when 007 punches Felix in the stomach as he is "about to say 007." Bond, I assume, does not want him to say "007" as he is aware that Largo has an assasin placed in his tub. The question I have is, should Largo not already know that Bond is 007? After all, James Bond was the name of the British agent who killed Dr.No, a SPECTRE agent, and Red Grant while foiling the SPECTRE plot to steal the Russian Lektor. Surely Largo can put two and two together on his own. Thus, why would Bond directly confront Largo, the "number 2" of SPECTRE at the casino the night before? And further, why would he be so careful in ensuring that Quist does not hear Felix call Bond 007? It makes sense for Largo to send Quist to try and kill Bond, as he knows he is 007, but for what other reason would Largo want to question Quist when he returns?

I'm assuming the answer to these questions are "because its a movie," but I could be missing something...

darenhat

Never mind that...when Bond punches Felix in the stomach to keep him from saying '007', Bond says quite loudly exactly what he didn't want said out loud.

So even if Quist didn't know Bond was 007, he found out thanks to Bond's own blabbermouth.

emtiem

And to be fair, it's not as if it's his secret identity or anything- it's not like Alfred telling the world that he's Batman; no-one should have any idea what the number '007' means!

The Cat

The re-editing of the movie is the answer to that. Now the movie looks like this:

- Bond chats with Domino
- Bond goes to the Casino
- He plays with Largo
- Bond dances with Domino
- Bond goes home to the hotel
- He finds Quist in the shower
- Quist reports to Largo and is killed

Now this is how it was originally planned and was intended to be released until the final edit:

- Bond chats with Domino
- Bond goes home to the hotel
- He finds Quist in the shower
- Quist reports to Largo and is killed
- Bond goes to the Casino
- He plays with Largo
- Bond dances with Domino

See the difference? Pay attention to the following details:

Bond wears the exact same clothes when he chats with Domino on the beach and when he returns to the hotel (same towel, everything). Thanks to the messed up finish cut, he goes to a blacktie event between the two occurances.

Bond and Felix chat in the background while Domino and Largo leave. If seen in the original edit, this makes sense. In the finished picture, it's a mistake, since Bond is contacted by Felix after this chat!

And most importantly. Largo says to Bond: "One of my associates spoke about". Currently, this line has almost no meaning. Who spoke about Bond? Domino? The guy watching them with binoculars? Oh no no no... Quist spoke about Bond, just before he was thrown in the shark pool! And thanks to that, Largo already knew who Bond was, and Bond knew that Largo knew because he sent Quist for him! That's the main difference if we look at the movie in this light. It's no mistake on Bond's part - it's a mistake coming from too much editing and changing the story after shooting.

jetsetwilly

He's not trying to stop Felix from saying "007"; he's just trying to keep him quiet, full stop. Quist is loitering in the bathroom and Bond wants to sneak up on him. Leiter yammering away wouldn't help, so he punches him. It's a little extreme, but it's only Felix Leiter, nobody important, and frankly I'd punch him too

taity

But why'd they do it? That original story would have made perfect sense