The official trailer for The Spy Who Loved Me arrived in 1977, marketing what many consider the peak of the Roger Moore era and the entry that most successfully recaptured the franchise's appetite for large-scale spectacle. The Egyptian locations, the submarine tanker villain, and the introduction of Jaws gave the series a renewed grandeur, and the trailer signals that ambition with real force.
First Impressions
The trailer is immediately the most visually striking of the Moore era to that point, with the Egyptian locations and the Atlantis underwater base conveying a production of genuine visual scale. Moore's Bond is at his most charismatic here, and the footage suggests a film that has found the right balance between the era's characteristic wit and the franchise's appetite for action on a grand scale.
What the Trailer Reveals
The trailer establishes Karl Stromberg's plan to provoke nuclear war and rebuild civilisation beneath the sea, Bond's uneasy alliance with Soviet agent Anya Amasova, and the film's underwater sequences. Richard Kiel's Jaws is introduced as the franchise's most physically imposing henchman, and the pre-credits ski jump hints at one of the most breathtaking stunt openings in the series' history.
Music and Sound
Carly Simon's Nobody Does It Better is one of the greatest Bond themes ever recorded: a piece of music of such melodic intelligence that it transcends the genre entirely. Marvin Hamlisch's score is among the franchise's most inventive, and the overall sonic palette reflects a production operating with real creative confidence.
Most Memorable Moment
The pre-credits ski jump off the cliff edge, followed by the Union Jack parachute opening, is the trailer's most breathtaking moment and among the most audacious stunts in Bond history. It is the sequence that most effectively signals the film's scale and remains one of the franchise's defining images.
Trailer Verdict
If Goldfinger defined the Connery era, The Spy Who Loved Me is its Moore-era equivalent: the film where everything clicked into place. This trailer knows it. The ski jump, Jaws, the Lotus submarine, Nobody Does It Better on the soundtrack. It is a film selling itself at full stretch, and it makes good on every count.