It’s sometimes overlooked and odd to think about that James Bond villains have to have a physical headquarters. They need a place to reside, meet and plot. Over the movies, we have seen them in all shapes and sizes, from a hollowed-out volcano lair, an abandoned satellite, an off-shore oil rig or a gold refinement factory.

In Thunderball (1965), we get to visit SPECTRE (Special Executor for Counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge, extortion) headquarters, of which Ernst Stavro Blofeld is its leader and Emilio Largo is number two in charge. What’s unique about Thunderball, however, is that we see the exact perspective of a villain leaving the public world (this time a city) and every step of their commute to their proverbial work desk. Here, Largo enters the Centre International D’Assistance aux Personnes Replacées (International Brotherhood for Assistance of Stateless Persons), goes to the back of the office and opens a secret door to the SPECTRE meeting room via buttons on a custom cigarette holder.

Also of note in the scene, is its agenda and laundry list of SPECTRE members’ malevolent contributory sources of income, as well as a shocking, smoky, human resources nightmare of a way Blofeld deals with insubordination. Parts of this scene are replicated in Spectre (2015) in a similar SPECTRE meeting.

Check out the SPECTRE meeting agenda below:

• Condolences for Number 6 (Colonel Jacques Bouvard) – killed by “an unknown assassin” (we know it to be James Bond)
• Financial Reports
• Number 7: “Blackmail of the double agent Matsou Fujiwa. Unfortunately, only 40 million yen. All the man had.”
• Number 10: “Assassination of Perringe, the French antimatter specialist who went over to the Russians: 3 million francs from the special department of the Quai D’Orsay.”
• Number 5: “Our consultation fee for the British train robbery: £250,000.”
• Number 11: “Distribution of Red China narcotics in the United States: $2,300,000. Collected by Number 9 and myself.” “Two million three? Our expectations were considerably higher.” “Competition from Latin America. Prices are down.”
• Disposal of Number 9 after he is found to have embezzled narcotics funds.
• New Business – Number 2’s NATO Project: “The most ambitious SPECTRE has ever taken.” “Thank you, Number 1. Our intention is to demand a ransom from the North Atlantic Treat Powers of $280 million (£100 million). I have sent SPECTRE agent Count Lippe to the south of England where he is making the necessary preparations. He is at a health clinic conveniently located near the NATO airbase.”

Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) is unfazed as a colleague gets murdered (electrocuted) during a meeting of SPECTRE in Thunderball (1965)

I personally love to see all of the “behind the scenes”/further insight we can get into the operations of any James Bond villain, and this scene is a perfect example of that!