Bond By The Sea

An iconic shot in Bond’s history. Ursula Andress walking out of the sea in Dr. No has reverberated around the series in different ways, being explicitly referenced in Die Another Day and gender-swapped in Casino Royale. Here’s how the 007 films created and paid tribute to a moment of movie magic. 

Dr. No (1962)

The Moment: Ferried by Felix Leiter’s accomplice Quarrel (John Kitzmiller), Bond (Sean Connery) arrives on Crab Key to investigate Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman). The following morning, Bond hears a female voice singing (“Underneath the mango tree, me honey and me…”). His interest piqued, he sees Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), a beautiful woman with wet hair, wearing a white bikini and a white webbing army belt, carrying a bunch of seashells and dumping them on the beach. 

The Making Of: Producer Cubby Broccoli cast the then 25-year-old Swiss actor Ursula Andress solely from a photo of the actress in a wet t-shirt just two weeks before production. When Andress arrived on set, her costume had not been decided on, so Broccoli called United Artists executive David Picker in New York and asked him to buy three bikinis from Saks Fifth Avenue and send them to Jamaica. 

The shot was captured on February 6 1962, at the privately owned Laughing Waters Beach in Ocho Rios, St Ann, Jamaica, near Fleming’s home, GoldenEye. The shot was witnessed by the author — his first visit to a 007 set — and his wife Ann, who were out for a stroll with poet Stephen Spender and journalist Peter Cornell — the group were forced to dive to the ground to avoid being seen on camera. The song Honey and Bond sing, ‘Underneath The Mango Tree’, was written by the film’s composer, Monty Norman, and sparked a war between the two co-stars. “Sean and I fought a bit trying to get the record player, trying to learn how to sing the song,” Andress recalled. “He used to steal it away from me and I would steal it back. He sings much better than I do. I can’t carry a tune.” In the end, Andress’s singing voice was replaced by German actor Nikki van der Zyl. 

The moment has earned a unique place in pop culture, and in 2001, Andress’s white bikini sold for £41,000 at auction.

Die Another Day (2002)

The Moment: Bond is on assignment in Cuba on the trail of Korean terrorist Zao (Rick Yune), believing him to be staying at a clinic that is changing his facial appearance via DNA-modifying technology. From a seaside resort, Bond surveys the island that plays host to the clinic by posing as an ornithologist with binoculars. His vision is interrupted by Jinx (Halle Berry) — whom we will later learn is a CIA operative — emerging (in slow motion) from the sea and walking up to the beachfront bar “Magnificent view” ventures Bond. “Isn’t it?” replies Jinx. “Too bad it’s lost on everyone else.” Sharing a mojito, it’s the start of a beautiful, if intense, friendship.

The Making Of: On April 3rd, the Die Another Day production team travelled to Cadiz in Spain, which was doubling for Cuba. Expecting sunny climes, the team arrived to rain, wind, and cloud cover with no foreseeable break in the weather. “I was hamming it up with the hot water bottles,” recalled Pierce Brosnan. “It’s pretty pathetic really — sitting there with a big fluffy blue dressing gown and a pink hot water bottle. It’s not very Bond.” 

The inclement elements also delayed the shooting of Jinx jumping out of the water, in a clear nod to Dr. No’s Honey Ryder entrance, which went further than just the action. “We wanted to pay homage to the Ursula Andress bikini,” said costume designer Lindy Hemming, “and we came up with this electric orange, very revealing and sexy bikini, and a very beautifully crafted diving belt made by a company called Whitaker Malem, which fits exactly on the top of her hips at the point where her bikini ends.” In February 2026, Berry revealed that she had kept the two-piece swimsuit for over two decades.

Casino Royale (2006)

The Moment: A beach in the Bahamas. Bond, taking a break from his hunt for bomber Mollaka (Sébastien Foucan), rises out of the twinkly-blue Caribbean sea and, sporting powder-blue, tight-fitting swimming trunks, strides confidently out of the surf and toward the shore. He catches the eye of a beautiful woman dismounting from a horse — we will come to know her as Solange (Caterina Murino), the wife of criminal operative Alex Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian) — and the pair share a moment. It won’t be the last.

The Making Of: It looks a clear-cut homage to the Ursula Andress/Dr No. moment but both screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade and director Martin Campbell claim that paying tribute was not on their mind. “No matter what anybody says, I needed a wide shot,” Campbell told Mark Salisbury. “That’s it. There was no ‘Let’s do a Dr. No shot.’ It was only once the film was shown that that got picked up on but it was entirely accidental in the sense we needed a wider shot of Daniel standing up, coming out of the sea.”

Still, costume designer Lindy Hemming had Andress in mind when thinking about the scene and knew it would be memorable. She went through numerous pairs of trunks with Craig, a selection of looser board shorts alongside a tighter pair of blue trunks — Craig, who’d spent months working out, immediately went for the blue made in Italy by La Perla and labelled GrigioPerla. The trunks later sold for £44,450 at an auction of Bond memorabilia at Christie’s to mark the 50th anniversary of the series in 2012. Dame Judi Dench presided over the bidding and quipped, “All I’m going to tell you is they’re unwashed.”

Co-producer Barbara Broccoli saw immediately the impact of the look on set. “Of course, when we were shooting it and he walked out of the sea, all the women were out of their minds. The men were too. Like Ursula Andress, that image was something men and women could appreciate. Daniel exemplified the kind of man every man would like to be. Strong, powerful and beautiful.”

The moment had PR benefits too. Shooting the moment, a paparazzi photographer snapped Craig coming out of the sea. The image was sold to British tabloid The Sun, and subsequently the image circulated around the world. While the Casino Royale team was initially angered, it served to heighten awareness about the film and transformed opinion on initial, unfair reservations about Craig as Bond.

“In a way, it was the turning point,” said executive producer Anthony Waye. “Daniel Craig had been too blonde and blue-eyed for the media but suddenly he was the perfect Bond.”