Thunderball featured the Italian villain Emilio Largo. In the film he was a white haired SPECTRE operative with an eye patch. In fact he was No. 2 in the organisation and described as the head of extortion operations. He was played by the Italian actor Adolfo Celli. Largo also appears in the 1983 remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again, but his forename is changed to Maximillian and he is played by the Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer.

Largo plays out a classic baddie plot which has been reused several times over the years in numerous productions. He has stolen two nuclear bombs from the careless chaps at NATO and now he is blackmailing the world. If they don’t stump up £100 million in diamonds then he is going to destroy an undisclosed city. It later turns out to be Miami that he is targeting.

Bond meets Largo at his Bahamas hideaway. He is a gambler who likes to play cards and he has a beautiful mistress called Domino. Like a true villain Largo has a swimming pool with sharks in it. Bond inevitably ends up getting thrown into it. Largo also had a lot of henchmen working for him but you get the impression with his attitude to failure that he probably went through them quite fast. He is also ruthless when it comes to his girlfriend and happily turns on her when he realises she is working with Bond.

The action later moves onto Largo’s luxury yacht called the Disco Volante. The Disco Volante is an expensive high tech hydrofoil ship fitted out with a number of underwater submarine crafts. SPECTRE apparently spent £200,000 on it and it features prominently in the finale. Largo is eventually shot in the back with a spear gun by Domino and the ship runs aground and explodes.

The actor Adolfo Celi appeared in over 100 films throughout his career and he specialised in playing villains. Largo was probably his most famous role but he also played the evil camp commander in Von Ryan’s Express the same year. His voice in Thunderball was dubbed by another Italian actor called Robert Rietti. Rietti also provided the voice for Dr. No, Tanaka and Blofeld.

In Never Say Never Again Largo’s plan is exactly the same but this time around he is played by Klaus Maria Brandauer. He is No. 1 in SPECTRE acting as a replacement for Blofeld and he has a yacht called the Flying Saucer and a Moorish castle on the north coast of Africa. His plan is also destined for disaster and he ends up crushed by a missile and then shot in the side by Domino with a harpoon gun.

For my money the first Largo played by Celi is a better villain. He was also closer to the man described in the original novel, although the film makers decided to add the eye patch to give him an extra air of evil. The shark pool and the nuclear theft and threat were classic villainous behaviour and Largo was definitely one of the best baddies that Bond ever had to deal with.