title: Austronesian peoples

text: Body art among Austronesian peoples is common, especially elaborate tattooing which is one of the most well-known pan-Austronesian traditions.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: In modern times, tattoos are usually associated with Polynesian culture, due to the highly influential accounts of James Cook in his explorations of the Pacific in the 18th century. Cook introduced the word "tattoo" (archaic: "tattaow", "tattow") into the English vocabulary, from Tahitian and Samoan "tātau" ("to tap"). However, tattoos exist prominently in various other Austronesian groups prior to contacts with other cultures.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Tattoos had various functions among Austronesian societies. Among men, they were strongly linked to the widespread practice of head-hunting raids. In head-hunting societies, tattoos were records of how many heads the warriors had taken in battle, and was part of the initiation rites into adulthood. The number and location of tattoos, therefore, were indicative of a warrior's status and prowess.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Among the Indigenous Taiwanese, tattoos were present for both men and women. Among the Tayal people, facial tattoos are dominant. They indicated maturity and skill in weaving and farming for women, and skill in hunting and battle for men. Like in most of Austronesia, tattooing traditions in Taiwan have largely disappeared due to the Sinicization of native peoples after the Chinese colonization of Taiwan in the 17th century, as well as conversion to Christianity. Most of the remaining tattoos are only found among elders.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: One of the earliest descriptions of Austronesian tattoos by Europeans was during the 16th century Spanish expeditions to the Philippines, beginning with the first voyage of circumnavigation by Ferdinand Magellan. The Spanish encountered the heavily tattooed Visayan people in the Visayas Islands, whom they named the ""Pintados"" (Spanish for "the painted ones"). However, Philippine tattooing traditions ("batok") have mostly been lost as the natives of the islands converted to Christianity and Islam, though they are still practiced in isolated groups in the highlands of Luzon and Mindanao. Philippine tattoos were usually geometric patterns or stylized depictions of animals, plants, and human figures. Some of the few remaining traditional tattoos in the Philippines are from elders of the Igorot peoples. Most of these were records of war exploits against the Japanese during World War II.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Among the Māori of New Zealand, tattoos ("moko") were originally carved into the skin using bone chisels ("uhi") rather than through puncturing as in usual practice. In addition to being pigmented, the skin was also left raised into ridges of swirling patterns.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Teeth blackening was the custom of dyeing one's teeth black with various tannin-rich plant dyes. It was practiced throughout almost the entire range of Austronesia, including Island Southeast Asia, Madagascar, Micronesia, and Island Melanesia, reaching as far east as Malaita. However, it was absent in Polynesia. It also existed in non-Austronesian populations in Mainland Southeast Asia and Japan. The practice was primarily preventative, as it reduced the chances of developing tooth decay similar to modern dental sealants. It also had cultural significance and was seen as beautiful. A common sentiment was that blackened teeth separated humans from animals.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Teeth blackening was often done in conjunction with other modifications to the teeth associated with beauty standards, including dental evulsion and teeth filing.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: The religious traditions of the Austronesian people focus mostly on ancestral spirits, nature spirits and gods. It is basically a complex animistic religion. Mythologies vary by culture and geographical location but share common basic aspects such as ancestor worship, animism, shamanism and the belief in a spirit world and powerful deities. There is also a great amount of shared mythology and a common belief in Mana.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Currently, many of these beliefs have gradually been replaced. Examples of native religions include: Indigenous Philippine folk religions (including beliefs on the Anito), Sunda Wiwitan, Kejawen, Kaharingan or the Māori religion. Many Austronesian religious beliefs were incorporated into foreign religions introduced unto them, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: With the possible exception of rongorongo on Rapa Nui, Austronesians did not have an indigenous writing system but rather adopted or developed writing systems after contact with various non-Austronesian cultures. There are various forms of symbolic communication by pictograms and petroglyphs, but these did not encode language.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Rongorongo, said to have originally been called "kohau motu mo rongorongo" ("lines of inscriptions for chanting out"), is the only pre-contact indigenous Austronesian system of glyphs that appear to be true writing or at least proto-writing. They consist of around 120 glyphs, ranging from representations of plants to animals, celestial objects, and geometric shapes. They were inscribed into wooden tablets about long using shark teeth and obsidian flakes. The wood allegedly came from toromiro and makoi trees, which is notable given that Rapa Nui was completely deforested at the time of European contact. Although of the surviving two dozen tablets, a few were made from trees introduced after European contact, as well as wood originating from European ships and driftwood. Rapa Nui also has a very rich assemblage of petroglyphs largely associated with the "tangata manu" ("birdman") cult of Makemake. Although some rongorongo glyphs may have been derived from these petroglyphs, rongorongo does not appear in any of the abundant rock carvings in Rapa Nui and seems to be restricted to the wooden tablets.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: The tablets were first described by an outsider in 1864 by the Catholic missionary Eugène Eyraud who said they were found "in all the houses." However, he paid them little attention and they remained unnoticed by the outside world. It wasn't until 1869 that one of the tablets came into the possession of Florentin-Étienne Jaussen, the Bishop of Tahiti. He brought the tablets to the world's attention and instructed the Rapa Nui mission to gather more information about them. But by then, most of the tablets were allegedly already destroyed, presumed to have been used as fuel by the natives in the deforested island.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: At the time of discovery of the tablets, Rapa Nui had undergone severe depopulation. This was largely due to the loss of the island's last trees and the Peruvian and Chilean slave raids in the early 1860s. The literate ruling classes of the Rapa Nui people (including the royal family and the religious caste) and the majority of the island's population were kidnapped or killed in the slave raids. Most of those taken died after only one or two years in captivity from the harsh working conditions and European diseases. Succeeding epidemics of smallpox and tuberculosis further decimated the island's population to the point that there were not enough people to bury the dead. The last remnants of the Rapa Nui people were assimilated by the Tahitians who were later brought to the island in an effort to repopulate it, further resulting in the loss of most of the Old Rapa Nui language.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Oral tradition holds that the ruling classes were the only ones who could read the tablets, and the ability to decipher the tablets was lost along with them. Numerous attempts have been made to read the tablets, starting from a few years after their discovery. But to this day, none have proven successful. Some authors have proposed that rongorongo may have been an attempt to imitate European script after the idea of writing was introduced during the "signing" of the 1770 Spanish Treaty of Annexation or through knowledge of European writing acquired elsewhere. They cite various reasons including the lack of attestation of rongorongo prior to the 1860s, the clearly more recent provenance of some of the tablets, the lack of antecedents, and the lack of additional archaeological evidence since its discovery. Others argue that it was merely a mnemonic list of symbols meant to guide incantations. Whether rongorongo is merely an example of trans-cultural diffusion, or a true indigenous Austronesian writing system (and one of the few independent inventions of writing in human history) remains unknown and may never be known.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: In Southeast Asia, the first true writing systems of pre-modern Austronesian cultures were all derived from the Grantha and Pallava Brahmic scripts, all of which are abugidas from South India. Various forms of abugidas spread throughout Austronesian cultures in Southeast Asia as kingdoms became Indianized through early maritime trading. The oldest use of abugida scripts in Austronesian cultures are 4th century stone inscriptions written in Cham script from Vietnam. There are numerous other Brahmic-derived writing systems among Southeast Asian Austronesians, usually specific to a certain ethnic group. Notable examples include Balinese, Batak, Baybayin, Buhid, Hanunó'o, Javanese, Kulitan, Lontara, Old Kawi, Rejang, Rencong, Sundanese, and Tagbanwa. They vary from having letters with rounded shapes to letters with sharp cuneiform-like angles; a result of the difference in writing mediums, with the former being ideal for writing on soft leaves and the latter ideal for writing on bamboo panels. The use of the scripts ranged from mundane records to encoding esoteric knowledge on magico-religious rituals and folk medicine.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: In regions which converted to Islam, abjads derived from the Arabic script started replacing the earlier abugidas at around the 13th century in Southeast Asia. Madagascar, as well, adopted the Arabic script in the 14th century. Abjads, however, have an even greater inherent problem with encoding Austronesian languages than abugidas, because Austronesian languages have more varied and salient vowels which the Arabic script can not usually encode. As a result, the Austronesian adaptations such as the Jawi and the Pegon scripts have been modified with a system of diacritics that encode sounds, both vowels and consonants, native to Austronesian languages but absent in Semitic languages. With the advent of the Colonial Era, almost all of these writing systems have been replaced with alphabets adapted from the Latin alphabet, as in the Hawaiian alphabet, Filipino alphabet, and Malay alphabet; however, several Formosan languages had been written in zhuyin, and Cia-Cia off Sulawesi has experimented with hangul.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: On Woleai and surrounding islands, a script was developed for the Woleaian language in the early 20th century. Approximately 20% of the script's letterforms were borrowed from Latin letters; the remaining characters seem to have been derived from indigenous iconography. Despite this heavy Latin influence, the script was a syllabary.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Vanuatu has a unique tradition of sand drawing, by which images are created by a single continuous line drawn in the sand. It is believed to have functioned as a means of symbolic communication in pre-contact Island Melanesia, especially between travelers and ethnic groups that do not speak the same language. The sand drawings consist of around 300 different designs, and seem to be shared across language groups. In the 1990s, elements of the drawings were adapted into a modern constructed script called Avoiuli by the Turaga indigenous movement on Pentecost Island.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Genetic studies have been done on the people and related groups. The Haplogroup O1 (Y-DNA)a-M119 genetic marker is frequently detected in Native Taiwanese, northern Philippines and Polynesians, as well as some people in Indonesia, Malaysia and non-Austronesian populations in southern China.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: A 2007 analysis of the DNA recovered from human remains in archaeological sites of prehistoric peoples along the Yangtze River in China also shows high frequencies of Haplogroup O1 in the Neolithic Liangzhu culture, linking them to Austronesian and Tai-Kadai peoples. The Liangzhu culture existed in coastal areas around the mouth of the Yangtze. Haplogroup O1 was absent in other archaeological sites inland. The authors of the study suggest that this may be evidence of two different human migration routes during the peopling of Eastern Asia; one coastal and the other inland, with little gene flow between them.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: An important breakthrough in studies in Austronesian genetics was the identification of the "Polynesian motif" (Haplogroup B4a1a1) in 1989, a specific nine-base-pair deletion mutation in mtDNA. Several studies have shown that it is shared by Polynesians and Island Southeast Asians, with a sub-branch also identified in Madagascar, indicating shared maternal ancestry of Austronesians. Austronesian-speaking regions also have high to moderate frequencies of Haplogroup O1 of the Y-DNA (including Madagascar) indicating shared paternal ancestry, with the exception of Polynesia where the Papuan-derived Haplogroup C2a1 predominates (although lower frequencies of Austronesian Haplogroup O-M122 also exist). This indicates that the Lapita people, the direct ancestors of Polynesians, were likely matrilocal, assimilating Papuan men from outside the community by marriage in Near Oceania, prior to the Polynesian expansion into Remote Oceania.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Moodley "et al." (2009) identified two distinct populations of the gut bacteria "Helicobacter pylori" that accompanied human migrations into Island Southeast Asia and Oceania, called hpSahul and hspMāori. The study sampled Native Australians, Native Taiwanese, highlanders in New Guinea, and Melanesians and Polynesians in New Caledonia, which were then compared with other "H. pylori" haplotypes from Europeans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and others. They found that hpSahul diverged from mainland Asian "H. pylori" populations approximately 31,000 to 37,000 years ago and have remained isolated for 23,000 to 32,000 years confirming the Australo-Melanesian substratum in Island Southeast Asia and New Guinea. hspMāori, on the other hand, is a subpopulation of hpEastAsia, previously isolated from Polynesians (Māori, Tongans, and Samoans) in New Zealand, and three individuals from the Philippines and Japan. The study found hspMāori from Native Taiwanese, Melanesians, Polynesians, and two inhabitants from the Torres Strait Islands, all of which are Austronesian sources. As expected, hspMāori showed greatest genetic diversity in Taiwan, while all non-Taiwanese hspMāori populations belonged to a single lineage they called the "Pacific clade." They also calculated the isolation-with-migration model (IMa), which showed that the divergence of the Pacific clade of hspMāori were unidirectional from Taiwan to the Pacific. This is consistent with the Out-of-Taiwan model of the Austronesian expansion.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: On 16 January 2020, the personal genomics company 23andMe added the category "Filipino & Austronesian" after customers with no known Filipino ancestors were getting false positives for 5% or more "Filipino" ancestry in their Ancestry Composition report (the proportion was as high as 75% in Samoa, 71% in Tonga, 68% in Guam, 18% in Hawaii, and 34% in Madagascar). The company's scientists surmised that this was due to the shared Austronesian genetic heritage being incorrectly identified as Filipino ancestry.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: A recent study from 2021 found that an ancient preboreal holocene hunter-gatherer from South Sulawesi had ancestry from both a distinct lineage related to modern Papuans and Aboriginal Australians and from an East-Eurasian lineage (represented by modern East Asians). The hunter-gatherer individual had approximately ~50% "Basal-East Asian" ancestry, and was positioned in between modern East Asians and Papuans of Oceania. The authors concluded that East Asian-related ancestry expanded much earlier into Maritime Southeast Asia than previously suggested, long before the expansion of Austroasiatic and Austronesian groups.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Another study about the ancestral composition of modern ethnic groups in the Philippines from 2021 similarly suggests that distinctive Basal-East Asian (East-Eurasian) ancestry originated in Mainland Southeast Asia at ~50,000BC, and expanded through multiple migration waves southwards and northwards respectively. Basal-East Asian ancestry, as well as later Austroasiatic ancestry, from Mainland Southeast Asia, arrived into the Philippines prior to the Austronesian expansion. Austronesian-speakers themself are suggested to have arrived on Taiwan and the northern Philippines between 10,000BC to 7,000BC from coastal Minyue, present-day Fujian, southern China. The authors concluded that the Austronesian expansion into Insular Southeast Asia and Polynesia was outgoing from the Philippines rather than Taiwan, and that modern Austronesian-speaking people have largely ancestry from the earliest Basal-East Asians, Austroasiatic migrants from Mainland Southeast Asia, and Austronesian-speaking seafarers from the Philippines.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: Genomic analysis of cultivated coconut ("Cocos nucifera") has shed light on the movements of Austronesian peoples. By examining 10 microsatellite loci, researchers found that there are 2 genetically distinct subpopulations of coconut – one originating in the Indian Ocean, the other in the Pacific Ocean. However, there is evidence of admixture, the transfer of genetic material, between the two populations. Given that coconuts are ideally suited for ocean dispersal, it seems possible that individuals from one population could have floated to the other. However, the locations of the admixture events are limited to Madagascar and coastal east Africa and exclude the Seychelles and Mauritius. Sailing west from Maritime Southeast Asia in the Indian Ocean, the Austronesian peoples reached Madagascar by ca. 50–500 CE, and reached other parts thereafter. This forms a pattern that coincides with the known trade routes of Austronesian sailors. Additionally, there is a genetically distinct sub-population of coconuts on the eastern coast of South America which has undergone a genetic bottleneck resulting from a founder effect; however, its ancestral population is the pacific coconut, which suggests that Austronesian peoples may have sailed as far east as the Americas.


title: Austronesian peoples

text: A genome analysis in 2020 showed Austronesian contact to South America around 1150–1200 CE, the earliest one between Fatu Hiva from the Marquesas Islands, and Colombia.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal () is an 2022 Indian Tamil-language romantic black comedy film written and directed by Vignesh Shivan. It stars Vijay Sethupathi, Nayanthara and Samantha. The soundtrack album and film score were composed by Anirudh. In the film, The life of Rambo, an unlucky man, changes when he finds love. However, the only problem is, instead of one, he falls in love with two women.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: "Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal" was released theatrically on 28 April 2022. And received mixed to negative from critics and audience, who praised the main cast's performance (particularly Vijay Sethupathi, Samantha and Nayanthara), background score and soundtrack but criticized the screenplay, climax and length. Despite the negative reviews the film grossed over at the box office and became an success.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: Prabhu is the host of a television show called "Real Or Reel". There, he interviews two women: Kanmani Ganguly and Khatija Begum. Both are very much in love with Ranjankudi Anbarasu Murugesa Boopathy Ohondhiran aka Rambo, who also loves them back.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: In the flashback, Rambo hails from a village that believed his family was cursed. Whoever married in his family would die. Rambo's father decides to break the myth and marries a local teacher named Minah Kaif, while his brothers and sister remained unmarried. Rambo's father is overjoyed after the birth of his son, whom he names Ranjankudi Anbarasu Murugesa Boopathy Ohondhiran (Rambo). Unfortunately, while announcing his son's birth, he accidentally slips from a tower and dies. His wife Minah suffers a stroke shortly after and is paralyzed. Rambo's uncles and aunts, and the whole village believe that the birth of Rambo has brought bad luck that his father tried so hard to fight. Rambo grows up believing that he emanates bad luck wherever he goes. When his mother suffers a seizure in his presence, he runs away from the village for good, believing that his proximity to his mother makes her ill. He goes to the city and lives far away from his family, but continues to have contact with them.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: Years later, Rambo takes up two jobs to earn a living. During the daytime, he works as a cab driver. At night, he works as a bouncer at a pub. He meets Khatija at the bar every evening and the two develop a friendship. Rambo notices Khatija's violent boyfriend: Mohammed Mobi, who slaps her one night, so he intervenes and fights Mobi. Khatija breaks up with Mobi and starts hanging out with Rambo every evening. On the other hand, Kanmani works as a saleswoman and raises her younger sister Minmini and differently-abled brother Bhargav. She attempts to find a husband who would allow her to live with her siblings even after marriage, but in vain. Rambo works as her cab driver during the day and the two develop a mutual attraction. Days go by and the two women fall for Rambo and propose to him on the same day. Though Rambo is surprised that two fabulous women have fallen for him, he is quick to realize that only their love has turned his bad luck around for good, so he accepts both of their proposals.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: Not knowing how to proceed with his double love life, he gets help from Prabhu, a reality show host, who makes Rambo concoct a story that he has a memory disorder that makes him forget events that happened during the day and night alternately. The staging is a disaster when Rambo reveals that he has memory of both the women and is equally in love with both, it is up to them to sacrifice their love for the other person. Kanmani and Khatija refuse to do so and stand by their decision to marry Rambo. The three move in together, and though both women dislike each other at first, after the unexpected death of Khatija's father, they strike a friendship. After a point, the two find out that Rambo staged the show and kick him out of the house. Rambo's friend asks them to travel to the village one last time to see Rambo's mother who is seriously ill. Rambo decides not to go back as he fears his presence could worsen her condition. He is forced to go and his mother miraculously recovers, now the villagers believe Rambo's presence gives out good luck. They beg both Khatija and Kanmani to marry Rambo so the family's curse could be broken and all his uncles and aunt can be married. They finally agree and host a wedding ceremony for not only Rambo, but also his entire family.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: Shortly after the rest of the family is married, Khatija and Kanmani walk out of the wedding, each sacrificing their love so the other person can marry Rambo. A year later, the three still meet with Rambo saying that their relationship was enough to break the curse. After the two women leave, Rambo shocks his neighbour and tells that Katrina Kaif has started chatting with him as his new girlfriend. Rambo throws his phone and leaves, leaving an unaware Katrina waiting for him online.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: After the success of "Naanum Rowdy Dhaan" (2015), Vignesh Shivan had planned a script for a triangular romantic film starring Sivakarthikeyan in the lead role, with actresses Trisha and Nayanthara under consideration for the female leads. Later in 2016, Vignesh had announced that Vijay Sethupathi will play the lead role in his film, titled as "Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal"; Anirudh Ravichander was reported to score the music which marked both Sethupathi and Anirudh's second collaboration with Vignesh after "Naanum Rowdy Dhaan". Produced by A. M. Rathnam, the shooting of the film was supposed to go on floors in August 2016, until Vignesh decided to remake the Hindi-language film "Special 26" (2013) for his new project, the Suriya-starrer "Thaanaa Serndha Koottam" (2018) and also to work with Sivakarthikeyan for another film produced by Lyca Productions, which came under the tentative title "#SK17".


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: With "#SK17" becoming shelved, Vignesh decided to revisit the script with the same cast and crew members. During the occasion of Valentine's Day (14 February 2020), Vignesh announced the film officially under the same title "Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal", reporting that he will produce the film under his own banner Rowdy Pictures along with Lalit Kumar of Seven Screen Studios. Nayanthara and Samantha were officially announced as the female leads. It was touted to be a love triangle story.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: The film was initially announced with Nayanthara and Trisha starring. However, due to Trisha's exit from the project citing scheduling conflicts, Samantha Ruth Prabhu was later announced as the female lead in February 2020. This film marked the third collaboration of Vijay Sethupathi and Nayanthara after Vignesh's "Naanum Rowdy Dhaan" (2015) and "Imaikkaa Nodigal" (2018), where Sethupathi appeared in a cameo role, and his second collaboration with Samantha after "Super Deluxe" (2019). Anirudh Ravichander was announced as the music director, after regularly collaborated with Vignesh, since "Naanum Rowdy Dhaan". Vijay Kartik Kannan, who was initially announced as the cinematographer left the project after completing two schedules of the film, due to date clashes and was replaced by S. R. Kathir. The film marked the debut of Shweta Sabu Cyril (daughter of veteran art director Sabu Cyril), who joined the film's team as the production designer.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: Vignesh Shivan announced through his Instagram on 21 March 2021 (World Down Syndrome Day), that, 15-year old Bhargav, who is affected by Down syndrome, will be joining the team as one of the pivotal role. While the makers were tightlipped about the recurring cast members, in October 2021, it was announced that dance choreographer Kala Master will make her acting debut with the film, being a part of the film's supporting cast. In November 2021, veteran actor Prabhu announced that he will play an important role in the film, and Indian cricketer S. Sreesanth, Redin Kingsley and Lollu Sabha Maran, confirmed their presence in the project. In the first look released on 15 November, Vignesh revealed the names of the lead characters as Rambo, Kanmani and Khatija respectively.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: Principal photography was supposed to take place in April 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 lockdown in India. In May 2020, the production house announced that filming would begin that August. However, on 10 December 2020, the team officially kickstarted the film on floors in Chennai, with principal photography from 14 December followed by Vijay Sethupathi's arrival in Hyderabad. After the film's first schedule completed within a month, Samantha Ruth Prabhu officially joined the film's sets from January 2021 in Chennai as a part of their second schedule. On 10 February 2021, Vignesh announced that the shooting of the second schedule wrapped.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: The third schedule began during March 2021 at Chennai, before filming was delayed due to the second wave of COVID-19. Shooting resumed in Pondicherry in August 2021. On 23 August 2021, a video from the shooting spot was surfaced into the internet. It had the lead actors recreating the song "Valai Osai" from "Sathyaa" (1988), where the actors also wore costumes similar to that song. With more than 90% of the film's shooting being completed, the makers began post-production activities for the film, with dubbing works beginning during early-December 2021. On 7 December, Vignesh kickstarted the final schedule of the film in Mysore. The shooting was wrapped up on 31 March 2022.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: The film's seven-song soundtrack were composed by Anirudh Ravichander in his third collaboration with Vignesh as a director, after "Naanum Rowdy Dhaan" (2015) and "Thaanaa Serndha Koottam" (2018). It is also Anirudh's 25th film as a composer. With the duo's plans of releasing singles occasionally on Valentine's Day, the makers released the song "Rendu Kaadhal" on 14 February 2021 which revolves around "double love failure and heartbreak". Anirudh sang this song with female vocals accompanied by Shakthisree Gopalan and Aishwarya Suresh Bindra. "Indiaglitz" praised the first single "Rendu Kaadhal", saying that the orchestration and melancholic moments "brings the mood to life" and the lyrics of Vignesh Shivan "expresses complex feelings in the simplest manner".


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: Though Vignesh Shivan announced that the second single will be released in July 2021 in an online interaction with fans, the song which was later titled "Two Two Two" was eventually released on 18 September, which coincided the director's birthday. This song also had vocals by Anirudh, along with female singers Sunidhi Chauhan and Sanjana Kalmanje. The track received positive response from music critics and actresses Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif, shared and praised the song through social media.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: On 3 January 2022, the third single track "Naan Pizhai" was launched, which had vocals by Ravi G and Shashaa Tirupati. It revolved around the "Kanmani-Rambo" love story. Ravi was approached to sing the track after Anirudh and Vignesh liked one of his cover versions he crooned during the COVID-19 lockdown. In an interview with Srinivasa Ramanujam of "The Hindu", Ravi had said that: "What's most heartening is that it is a melody, which itself is a difficult proposition for composers to churn out in this age of fast-paced peppy numbers. The opportunity to explore such melodies in the film music space is scarce. The first time I listened to the track version, I had goosebumps. That it has clicked with audiences is great news for musicians." The track received positive response for Anirudh's melodious composition, and had crossed above 10 million views in YouTube. A rough cut of this track is sung by Anirudh himself.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: On 20 April 2022, the fourth single "Dippam Dappam" was released, which had vocals by Anthony Daasan and Anirudh. The track received positive reviews for its upbeat tunes.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: "Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kadhal" released on 28 April 2022. It was initially slated for a theatrical release in December 2021 but due to delay in post-production, the release was postponed to April. The film was planned for its simultaneous release for its Telugu dubbed version as "Kanmani Rambo Khatija" but the Telugu version didn't release due to negative reviews.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: The Tamil Nadu distribution rights of the film was bought by Red Giant Movies. The Kerala theatrical distribution rights of "Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal" has been snapped by Iffaar Media.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: Star Vijay acquired the satellite rights of the film, while Disney+ Hotstar acquired the digital streaming rights for streaming. The film started streaming on Disney+ Hotstar from 27 May 2022.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: The film grossed over in worldwide box office, becoming one of the highest-grossing Tamil films of the year.


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: The film received mixed to negative reviews. Soundarya Athimuthu of "The Quint" gave the rating 2.5 out of 5 stating that "The makers have hinted at it quite well because just like how Vijay Sethupathi as Rambo in the film smartly tries to justify cheating on two women at the same time, Director Vignesh Shivan with his quirky comedy, some beautifully placed emotional dialogues and heart touching lyrics also cheekily cheats the audience – making them believe that this is a one of a kind love story while all he did was, reimagine the rom-com genre by twisting the tale of the usual storyline – "two girls fight over a guy". But what feels somewhat good is that the hero is not completely rewarded at the end despite his mistakes as one would anticipate."


title: Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal

text: Manoj Kumar R of "The Indian Express" gave the film's rating 2 out of 5 stating that "The latent nature of adult comedy in this movie is a big turn off. This film aims to play into the wild fantasies of a lovelorn man by subtly sexualising the leading ladies. But, it's neither clean humour nor an outright adult comedy. It's a mess. The main reason is Vignesh's indecisiveness. He wants to keep the film safe for people to watch it with family. And at the same time, sprinkle it with just enough double meaning dialogues and scenes so that people get the hint. It also wants to be a combination of director C. S. Amudhan's "Thamizh Padam", a spoof film, and Vignesh's 2015 hit "Naanum Rowdy Dhaan". You can't have it both ways."


title: Casper Van Dien

text: Casper Robert Van Dien Jr. (born December 18, 1968) is an American actor. He is best known for his lead role as Johnny Rico in the 1997 science-fiction action film "Starship Troopers". He has also appeared in a large number of television and film roles, often in daytime and primetime soap operas, and a large number of TV movies and direct-to-video films, including "", a 2008 sequel to the original film.


title: Casper Van Dien

text: Van Dien was born and raised in the Pensacola suburb of Milton, Florida, the son of Diane ("née" Morrow), a nursery school teacher, and Casper Robert Van Dien Sr., a U.S. Navy Commander and fighter pilot.


title: Casper Van Dien

text: There is a long military tradition in Van Dien's family. Aside from his father, his grandfather was a Marine during World War II. Van Dien is descended from an old Dutch family long settled in the New York area; his other heritage includes Swedish, French, and English.


title: Casper Van Dien

text: The street on which Van Dien grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey, Van Dien Avenue, was named after his great-great-great-grandfather. When Van Dien was older, his family moved to Florida, where he enrolled at the St. Petersburg campus of the Admiral Farragut Academy, graduating 3rd in command. After high school, Van Dien attended Florida State University in Tallahassee, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.


title: Casper Van Dien

text: After moving to Los Angeles, Van Dien landed a number of small parts in various television series and movies. Two early breaks were recurring roles as Ty Moody on the daytime soap opera "One Life to Live" and the prime time drama "Beverly Hills, 90210". Keen to expand his acting talents, Van Dien took a bit part in the video game, "Wing Commander IV".


title: Casper Van Dien

text: In 1996, Van Dien played King Tal in "", the second sequel to the 1982 cult classic, "The Beastmaster". Van Dien also starred in the 1997 James Dean biopic "James Dean: Race with Destiny". Soon after, he got the breakthrough role of Johnny Rico in Paul Verhoeven's 1997 science fiction action film "Starship Troopers". His success in "Starship Troopers" subsequently resulted in his casting as Tarzan in "Tarzan and the Lost City" (1998). Van Dien next played Brom von Brunt in Tim Burton's 1999 film "Sleepy Hollow", a reworking of the classic Washington Irving tale.


title: Casper Van Dien

text: In 2000 Van Dien appeared in "Cutaway" as well as Aaron Spelling's short-lived NBC prime time soap "Titans" with Yasmine Bleeth, John Barrowman, Perry King and Victoria Principal. He filmed several scenes as Patrick Bateman, in 2002's "The Rules of Attraction". However, the scenes were unused in the final film.


title: Casper Van Dien

text: In 2008 Van Dien returned to the role of Rico in "", a direct-to-video sequel to "Starship Troopers".


title: Casper Van Dien

text: In 2020, he joined the cast of the independent film "Daughter". In 2022, Van Dien played the role of Samual Hyst in the series "Salvage Marines", where he was also credited as a producer, an adaptation of the "Necrospace" book series; in an interview, he favorably compared this role to that of Johnny Rico.


title: Casper Van Dien

text: From 1993 to 1997 Van Dien was married to Carrie Mitchum (granddaughter of Robert Mitchum). Van Dien had co-starred with Robert Mitchum in "James Dean: Race with Destiny". They have two children, including actress Grace Van Dien (born 1996).


title: Casper Van Dien

text: In 1999 Van Dien met actress Catherine Oxenberg during the filming of the TV movie "The Collectors", and they soon worked together again in the 1999 thriller "The Omega Code". On May 8, 1999, they married at Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2005, the couple appeared in their own reality series, "I Married a Princess", which aired on the Lifetime Television channel in the United States, LIVINGtv in the United Kingdom and Lifestyle You in Australia; Oxenberg's mother is Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. During the 2006–2007 TV season, Van Dien and Oxenberg co-starred in the American drama series "Watch Over Me" on MyNetworkTV. Oxenberg had a daughter from a previous relationship, India Riven Oxenberg (born 1991). Van Dien and Oxenberg have two daughters, born 2001 and 2003. In 2015, Van Dien filed for divorce from Oxenberg. Oxenberg and Van Dien were celebrity ambassadors for the non-profit organization Childhelp.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a 1969 spy film and the sixth in the "James Bond" series produced by Eon Productions. It is based on the 1963 novel by Ian Fleming. Following Sean Connery's decision to retire from the role after "You Only Live Twice", Eon selected George Lazenby, a model with no prior acting credits, to play the part of James Bond. During filming, Lazenby announced that he would play the role of Bond only once.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: In the film, Bond faces Blofeld (Telly Savalas), who is planning to hold the world to ransom by a threat to render all food plants and livestock infertile through the actions of a group of brainwashed "angels of death". Along the way Bond meets, falls in love with, and eventually marries Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg).


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: It is the only Bond film to have been directed by Peter R. Hunt (with this serving as his directorial debut), who had served as a film editor and second unit director on previous films in the series. Hunt, along with producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, decided to produce a more realistic film that would follow the novel closely. It was shot in Switzerland, England, and Portugal from October 1968 to May 1969. Although its cinema release was not as lucrative as its predecessor "You Only Live Twice", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was still one of the top-performing films of the year. Critical reviews upon release were mixed, but the film's reputation has improved greatly over time and is now regarded as one of the strongest entries in the series as well as one of the most faithful adaptations of a Fleming novel.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: James Bond saves a woman on the beach from committing suicide by drowning, and later meets her again in a casino. The woman, Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo, invites Bond to her hotel room to thank him, but when Bond arrives he is attacked by an unidentified man. After subduing the man, Bond returns to his own room and finds Tracy there; she claims she was unaware of the attacker's presence. The next morning, Bond is kidnapped by several men, including the one he fought, who take him to meet Marc-Ange Draco, the head of the European crime syndicate Unione Corse. Draco reveals that Tracy is his only daughter and tells Bond of her troubled past, offering Bond one million pounds if he will marry her. Bond refuses, but agrees to continue romancing Tracy if Draco helps him track down Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Upon returning to London, M relieves Bond of his mission to assassinate Blofeld. Furious, Bond dictates a letter of resignation to Moneypenny, which she alters into a request for leave. Bond heads for Draco's birthday party in Portugal. There, Bond and Tracy begin a whirlwind romance, and Draco directs the agent to a law firm in Bern, Switzerland. Bond breaks into the office of Swiss lawyer Gumbold and learns that Blofeld is corresponding with London College of Arms genealogist Sir Hilary Bray, attempting to claim the title Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Posing as Bray, Bond goes to meet Blofeld, who has established a clinical allergy-research institute atop Piz Gloria in the Swiss Alps. Bond meets 12 young women (later referred to by Blofeld as his "angels of death"), who are patients at the institute's clinic, apparently cured of various allergies. After dinner, Bond goes to the room of one patient, Ruby, to seduce her. At midnight, while still with Ruby, Bond discovers the women go into a sleep-induced hypnotic state while Blofeld implants subliminal audio instructions. In fact, they are being brainwashed to distribute bacteriological warfare agents throughout the world.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Bond tries to trick Blofeld into leaving Switzerland so that MI6 can arrest him without violating Swiss sovereignty. Blofeld refuses and Bond is eventually caught by henchwoman Irma Bunt. Blofeld reveals that he identified Bond after his attempt to lure him out of Switzerland, and tells his henchmen to take the agent away. Bond eventually makes his escape by skiing down from Piz Gloria while Blofeld and his men give chase. Tracy finds Bond in the village of Lauterbrunnen, and they escape Bunt and her men after a car chase. A blizzard forces them to a remote barn, where Bond professes his love to Tracy and proposes marriage to her, which she happily accepts. The next morning, as the chase continues on skis, Blofeld sets off an avalanche. Tracy is captured, while Bond is buried but manages to escape.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Back in London at M's office, Bond is informed that Blofeld intends to hold the world to ransom by threatening to destroy its agriculture using his brainwashed women, demanding amnesty for all past crimes, and that he be recognised as the current Count de Bleuchamp. M tells 007 that the ransom will be paid and forbids him to mount a rescue mission. Bond instead enlists Draco and his forces to attack Blofeld's headquarters, while also rescuing Tracy from Blofeld's captivity. The facility is destroyed, and Blofeld escapes the destruction alone in a bobsleigh, with Bond pursuing him. The chase ends when Blofeld is ensnared by tree branches.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal, then drive away in Bond's Aston Martin DBS. When Bond pulls over to the roadside to remove flowers from the car, Blofeld and Bunt commit a drive-by shooting of the couple's car. Bond survives, but Tracy is killed in the attack.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The angels of death are 12 beautiful women from all over the world being brainwashed by Blofeld under the guise of allergy or phobia treatment to spread the Virus Omega. There is at least one blonde, brunette, and redhead as well as an Asian and black woman. A number appeared in the representative styles of dress of their particular nation. Their unwitting mission is to help Blofeld contaminate and ultimately sterilise the world's food supply.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The novel "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was first published after the film series started and contains "a gentle dig at the cinematic Bond's gadgets"; Broccoli and Saltzman had originally intended to make "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" after "Goldfinger" and Richard Maibaum worked on a script at that time. However, "Thunderball" was filmed instead after the ongoing rights dispute over the novel was settled between Fleming and Kevin McClory. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was due to follow that, but problems with a warm Swiss winter and inadequate snow cover led to Saltzman and Broccoli postponing the film again, favouring production of "You Only Live Twice".


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Between the resignation of Sean Connery at the beginning of filming "You Only Live Twice" and its release, Saltzman had planned to adapt "The Man with the Golden Gun" in Cambodia and use Roger Moore as the next Bond, but political instability meant the location was ruled out and Moore signed up for another series of "The Saint". After "You Only Live Twice" was released in 1967, the producers once again picked up with "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Peter Hunt, who had worked on the five preceding films, had impressed Broccoli and Saltzman enough to earn his directorial debut as they believed his quick cutting had set the style for the series. It was also the result of a long-standing promise from Broccoli and Saltzman for a directorial position, which they honored after Lewis Gilbert declined to direct. Hunt also asked for the position during the production of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", and he brought along with him many crew members, including cinematographer Michael Reed. Hunt was focused on making his mark – "I wanted it to be different than any other Bond film would be. It was my film, not anyone else's." "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was the last film in the series on which Hunt worked.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who had worked on all the previous "Bond" films except for "You Only Live Twice", was responsible for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"s script. Saltzman and Broccoli decided to drop the science fiction gadgets from the earlier films and focus more on plot, as in "From Russia With Love". Peter Hunt asked Simon Raven to write some of the dialogue between Tracy and Blofeld in Piz Gloria, which was to be "sharper, better and more intellectual"; one of Raven's additions was having Tracy quoting James Elroy Flecker. When writing the script, the producers decided to make the closest adaptation of the book possible: virtually everything in the novel occurs in the film and Hunt was reported to always enter the set carrying an annotated copy of the novel.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: With the script following the novel more closely than the other film adaptations of the eponymous source novels, there are several continuity errors due to the films taking place in a different sequence, such as Blofeld not recognising Bond, despite having met him face-to-face in the previous film "You Only Live Twice". In the original script, Bond undergoes plastic surgery to disguise him from his enemies; the intention was to allow an unrecognisable Bond to infiltrate Blofeld's hideout and help the audience accept the new actor in the role. However, this was dropped in favour of ignoring the change in actor.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: To make audiences not forget it was the same James Bond, just played by another actor, the producers inserted many references to the previous films, some as in-jokes. These include Bond breaking the fourth wall by stating "This never happened to the other fellow"; the credits sequence with images from the previous instalments; Bond visiting his office and finding objects from "Dr. No", "From Russia with Love", and "Thunderball"; and a caretaker whistling the theme from "Goldfinger". Maibaum later said he thought "Lazenby was not ideal for the part" but that "it was a marvellous script."


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: In 1967, after five films, Sean Connery resigned from the role of James Bond and was not on speaking terms with Albert Broccoli during the filming of "You Only Live Twice". Over 400 actors, including many of the most famous performers in the Commonwealth, were considered for the role of James Bond. The confirmed front runners were Englishman John Richardson, Dutchman Hans De Vries, Australian Robert Campbell, Englishman Anthony Rogers and Australian George Lazenby. Broccoli also met with Terence Stamp about playing the part. Broccoli was interested in rising star Oliver Reed but decided his public image was already too distinct. Future Bond star Timothy Dalton was asked to audition after his appearance in "The Lion in Winter" but considered himself too young, as he was 25 years old and did not want to succeed Connery as Bond. In an interview in 1987 when he was playing Bond in "The Living Daylights", Dalton said "I was 24-25 then, I had a good career then as a young man in films The Lion in Winter and Mr Broccoli kindly asked me if I was interested, I think I'm just too young for this role. I think Bond should be between 35 and 40, and as a 25-26 year old and I wouldn't have been right".


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Broccoli and Hunt eventually chose Lazenby after seeing him in a Fry's Chocolate Cream advertisement. Lazenby dressed the part by sporting several sartorial Bond elements such as a Rolex Submariner wristwatch and a Savile Row suit (ordered for, but uncollected by, Connery), and going to Connery's barber at the Dorchester Hotel. Broccoli noticed Lazenby as a Bond-type man based on his physique and character elements, and offered him an audition. The position was consolidated when Lazenby accidentally punched a professional wrestler, who was acting as stunt coordinator, in the face, impressing Broccoli with his ability to display aggression. Lazenby was offered a contract for seven films; however, he was convinced by his agent Ronan O'Rahilly that the secret agent would be archaic in the liberated 1970s, and as a result he left the series after the release of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in 1969.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: For Tracy Draco, the producers wanted an established actress opposite neophyte Lazenby. Brigitte Bardot was invited, but after she signed to appear in "Shalako" opposite Sean Connery, the deal fell through, and Diana Rigg—who had already been the popular heroine Emma Peel in "The Avengers"—was cast instead. Rigg said one of the reasons for accepting the role was that she always wanted to be in an epic film. Hunt and Maibaum admired Donald Pleasence's performance as Blofeld in "You Only Live Twice" but wanted to recast the character. Maibaum originally wrote the role of Blofeld with Max von Sydow in mind; coincidentally, von Sydow would later play Blofeld in the non-Eon Bond film "Never Say Never Again". Telly Savalas was ultimately cast following a suggestion from Broccoli. Hunt's neighbour George Baker was offered the part of Sir Hilary Bray. Baker's voice was also used when Lazenby was impersonating Bray, as Hunt considered Lazenby's imitation not convincing enough. Gabriele Ferzetti was cast as Draco after the producers saw him in "We Still Kill the Old Way", but Ferzetti's heavy Italian accent also led to his voice being redubbed by English actor David de Keyser for the final cut.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Principal photography began in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, on 21 October 1968, with the first scene shot being an aerial view of Bond climbing the stairs of Blofeld's mountain retreat to meet the women. The scenes were shot at the revolving restaurant Piz Gloria, located atop the Schilthorn near the village of Mürren. The location was found by production manager Hubert Fröhlich after three weeks of location scouting in France and Switzerland. The restaurant was still under construction, but the producers found the spectacular location interesting, and had to finance the provision of electricity and the aerial lift to make filming there possible. The first chase scene in the Alps was shot at the Schilthorn and the second one at Saas-Fee, while the Christmas celebrations were filmed in Grindelwald, and some scenes were shot on location in Bern. Production was hampered by weak snowfall which was unfavourable to the skiing action scenes. The producers even considered moving to another location in Switzerland, but it was taken by the production of "Downhill Racer". The Swiss filming ended up running 56 days over schedule. In March 1969, production moved to England, with London's Pinewood Studios being used for interior scenes, and M's house being shot in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. In April, the filmmakers went to Portugal, where principal photography wrapped in May. The pre-credit coastal and hotel scenes were filmed at Hotel Estoril Palacio in Estoril and Guincho Beach, Cascais, while Lisbon was used for the reunion of Bond and Tracy, and the ending employed a mountain road in the Arrábida National Park near Setúbal. Harry Saltzman wanted these scenes to be in France, but after searching there, Peter Hunt considered that not only were the locations not photogenic, but were already "overexposed".


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: While the first unit shot at Piz Gloria, the second unit, led by John Glen, started filming the ski chases. The downhill skiing involved professional skiers, and various camera tricks. Some cameras were handheld, with the operators holding them as they were going downhill with the stuntmen, and others were aerial, with cameramen Johnny Jordan – who had previously worked in the helicopter battle of "You Only Live Twice" — developing a system where he was dangled by an long parachute harness rig below a helicopter, allowing scenes to be shot on the move from any angle. The bobsledding chase was also filmed with the help of Swiss Olympic athletes, and was rewritten to incorporate the accidents the stuntmen suffered during shooting, such as the scene where Bond falls from the sled. Blofeld getting snared with a tree was performed at the studio by Savalas himself, after the attempt to do this by the stuntman on location came out wrong. Heinz Lau and Robert Zimmermann served as the stunt doubles for Bond and Blofeld during the bobsleigh scene. Glen was also the editor of the film, employing a style similar to the one used by Hunt in the previous Bond films, with fast motion in the action scenes and exaggerated sound effects.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The avalanche scenes were due to be filmed in co-operation with the Swiss army, which annually used explosions to prevent snow build-up by causing avalanches, but the area chosen naturally avalanched just before filming. The final result was a combination of a man-made avalanche at an isolated Swiss location shot by the second unit, stock footage, and images created by the special effects crew with salt. The stuntmen were filmed later, added by optical effects. For the scene where Bond and Tracy crash into a car race while being pursued, an ice rink was constructed over an unused aeroplane track, with water and snow sprayed on it constantly. Lazenby and Rigg did most of the driving due to the high number of close-ups.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: For the cinematography, Hunt aimed for a "simple, but glamorous like the 1950s Hollywood films I grew up with", as well as something realistic, "where the sets don't look like sets". Cinematographer Michael Reed added he had difficulties with lighting, as every set built for the film had a ceiling, preventing spotlights from being hung from above. While shooting, Hunt wanted "the most interesting framings possible", which would also look good after being cropped for television.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Lazenby said he experienced difficulties during shooting, not receiving any coaching despite his lack of acting experience, and with director Hunt never addressing him directly, only through his assistant. Lazenby claimed that Hunt also asked the rest of the crew to keep a distance from him, as "Peter thought the more I was alone, the better I would be as James Bond." Allegedly, there also were personality conflicts with Rigg, who was already an established star. However, according to Hunt, these rumours are untrue and there were no such difficulties—or else they were minor—and may have started with Rigg joking to Lazenby before filming a love scene, "Hey George, I'm having garlic for lunch. I hope you are!" Hunt also declared that he usually had long talks with Lazenby before and during shooting. For instance, to shoot Tracy's death scene, Hunt brought Lazenby to the set at 8 o'clock in the morning and made him rehearse all day long, "and I broke him down until he was absolutely exhausted, and by the time we shot it at five o'clock, he was exhausted, and that's how I got the performance." Hunt said that if Lazenby had remained in the role, he would also have directed the successor film, "Diamonds Are Forever", and that his original intention had been to conclude the film with Bond and Tracy driving off following their wedding, saving Tracy's murder for the pre-credit sequence of "Diamonds Are Forever". The idea was discarded after Lazenby quit the role.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was the longest "Bond" film until "Casino Royale" was released in 2006. Even so, two scenes were deleted from the final print: Irma Bunt spying on Bond as he buys a wedding ring for Tracy, and a chase over London rooftops and into the Royal Mail underground rail system after Bond's conversation with Sir Hilary Bray was overheard.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The soundtrack for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" has been called "perhaps the best score of the series." It was composed, arranged and conducted by John Barry; it was his sixth successive "Bond" film. Barry opted to use more electronic instruments and a more aggressive sound in the music – "I have to stick my oar in the musical area double strong to make the audience try and forget they don't have Sean ... to be Bondian beyond Bondian."


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Barry felt it would be difficult to compose a theme song containing the title "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" unless it were written operatically, in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan. Leslie Bricusse had considered lyrics for the title song but director Peter R. Hunt allowed an instrumental title theme in the tradition of the first two Bond films. The theme is built around a lament bass, which establishes the story as a tragedy. Barry's composition was described as "one of the best title cuts, a wordless Moog-driven monster, suitable for skiing at breakneck speed or dancing with equal abandon."


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Barry also composed the love song "We Have All the Time in the World", with lyrics by Burt Bacharach's regular lyricist Hal David, sung by Louis Armstrong. It is heard during the Bond–Tracy courtship montage, bridging Draco's birthday party in Portugal and Bond's burglary of the Gebrüder Gumbold law office in Bern, Switzerland. Barry recalled Armstrong was very ill, but recorded the song in one take. Armstrong did, however, make some further recordings in 1970 and 1971. The song was re-released in 1994, achieving the number three position during a 13-week spell in the UK charts. The song was reused for a second Bond movie, when it was used as the soundtrack for the closing credits for the 2021 release "No Time to Die".


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Barry and David also wrote two other songs for the film, both performed by Danish singer Nina. One, entitled "Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?", was featured in the film in several scenes. The other, "The More Things Change", was recorded by Nina at the same session but did not end up in the finished film. Instead, it appeared as the B-side of the UK single of "Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?" and an instrumental version of it appeared on John Barry's 1970 LP "Ready When You Are J.B.".


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The theme, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", is used in the film as an action theme alternative to Monty Norman's "James Bond Theme", as with Barry's previous "007" themes. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was covered in 1997 by the British big beat group the Propellerheads for the "Shaken and Stirred" album. Barry's orchestrator Nic Raine recorded an arrangement of the escape from Piz Gloria sequence and it was featured as a theme in the trailers for the 2004 Pixar animated film directed by Brad Bird, "The Incredibles". Barry was the first choice to do the score for "The Incredibles". However, he declined to do the score, as he did not wish to duplicate the sound of his older work.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was released on 18 December 1969 with its premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London. The avalanche sequence in the film had been recorded in stereo and the Odeon installed a new speaker system to highlight the effect.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Lazenby appeared at the premiere with a beard, looking "very un-Bond-like", according to the "Daily Mirror". Lazenby claimed the producers had tried to persuade him to shave it off to appear like Bond, but by then he had already decided not to make another Bond film and rejected the idea. The beard and accompanying shoulder-length hair "strained his already fragile relationship with Saltzman and Broccoli".


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Because Lazenby had informed the producers that "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was to be his only outing as Bond and because of the lack of gadgets used by Bond in the film, few items of merchandise were produced for the film, apart from the soundtrack album and a film edition of the book. Those that were produced included a number of Corgi Toys, including Tracey's Mercury Cougar (1969), Campbell's Volkswagen and two versions of the bobsleigh—one with the 007 logo and one with the Piz Gloria logo. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was nominated for only one award: George Lazenby was nominated in the "New Star of the Year – Actor" category at the 1970 Golden Globe Award ceremony, losing out to Jon Voight.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The film topped the United States box office when it opened with a gross of $1.2 million for the week. It was the highest-grossing film in January 1970. The film closed its box-office run with £750,000 in the United Kingdom (the highest-grossing film of the year), $64.6 million worldwide, half of "You Only Live Twice"s total gross, but still one of the highest-grossing films of 1969. It was one of the most popular movies in France in 1969, with admissions of 1,958,172. Nonetheless, this was a considerable drop from "You Only Live Twice". After re-releases, the total box office was $82,000,000 worldwide.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The majority of reviews were critical of either the film, Lazenby, or both, while most of the contemporary reviews in the British press referred to George Lazenby at some point as "The Big Fry", a reference to his previous acting in Fry's chocolate advertisements. Derek Malcolm of "The Guardian" was dismissive of Lazenby's performance, saying that he "is not a good actor and though I never thought Sean Connery was all that stylish either, there are moments when one yearns for a little of his louche panache." For all the criticism of Lazenby, however, Malcolm says that the film was "quite a jolly frolic in the familiar money-spinning fashion". Tom Milne, writing in "The Observer" was even more scathing, saying that "I ... fervently trust ("OHMSS") will be the last of the James Bond films. All the pleasing oddities and eccentricities and gadgets of the earlier films have somehow been lost, leaving a routine trail through which the new James Bond strides without noticeable signs of animation."


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Donald Zec in the "Daily Mirror" was equally damning of Lazenby's acting abilities, comparing him unfavourably to Connery: "He looks uncomfortably in the part like a size four foot in a size ten gumboot." In yet another unfavourable comparison of Lazenby to Connery, Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" remarked that he "doesn't fill Sean Connery's shoes, Aston-Martin, or stretch pants. The new 007 Is more boyish and consequently less of a man. He doesn't order food with the same verve, and generally lacks the self-satisfied smirk that Connery kept with him and transmitted to his audience." A. H. Weiler of "The New York Times" also weighed in against Lazenby, saying that "Lazenby, if not a spurious Bond, is merely a casual, pleasant, satisfactory replacement."


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Zec was kinder to Lazenby's co-star, saying that "there is style to Diana Rigg's performance and I suspect that the last scene which draws something of a performance out of Lazenby owes much to her silken expertise." Siskel also wrote that Rigg "is well-cast as the girl, but we lose her for about an hour In the film, only to have her return in a most implausible location and time."


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: One of the few supporters of Lazenby amongst the critics was Alexander Walker in the London "Evening Standard" who said that "The truth is that George Lazenby is almost as good a James Bond as the man referred to in his film as 'the other fellow'. Lazenby's voice is more suave than sexy-sinister and he could pass for the other fellow's twin on the shady side of the casino. Bond is now definitely all set for the Seventies." Judith Crist of "New York" also found the actor to be a strong point of the movie, stating that "This time around there's less suavity and a no-nonsense muscularity and maleness to the role via the handsome Mr. Lazenby".


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The feminist film critic Molly Haskell also wrote an approving review of the film in "The Village Voice": "In a world, an industry, and particularly a genre which values the new and improved product above all, it is nothing short of miraculous to see a movie which dares to go backward, a technological artefact which has nobly deteriorated into a human being. I speak of the new and obsolete James Bond, played by a man named George Lazenby, who seems more comfortable in a wet tuxedo than a dry martini, more at ease as a donnish genealogist than reading (or playing) "Playboy", and who actually dares to think that one woman who is his equal is better than a thousand part-time playmates." Haskell was also affected by the film's emotional ending: "The love between Bond and his Tracy begins as a payment and ends as a sacrament. After ostensibly getting rid of the bad guys, they are married. They drive off to a shocking, stunning ending. Their love, being too real, is killed by the conventions it defied. But they win the final victory by calling, unexpectedly, upon feeling. Some of the audience hissed, I was shattered. If you like your Bonds with happy endings, don't go."


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Modern reception of the film has seen a strong positive reversal, to the point that many Bond connoisseurs have ranked it as their personal favourite, including multiple Academy Award winners and participants in a magazine fan poll. Film critic James Berardinelli summed this up in his review of the movie: "with the exception of one production aspect, [it] is by far the best entry of the long-running James Bond series. The film contains some of the most exhilarating action sequences ever to reach the screen, a touching love story, and a nice subplot that has agent 007 crossing (and even threatening to resign from) Her Majesty's Secret Service." Julia Sirmons, writing in CrimeReads, also regarded it as the best Bond film, highlighting its mix of romance, the strong Bond girl, its cheekiness, and Lazenby.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The American film reviewer Leonard Maltin has suggested that if it had been Connery in the leading role instead of Lazenby, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" would have epitomised the series. On the other hand, Danny Peary wrote, "I'm not sure I agree with those who insist that if Connery had played Bond it would definitely be the best of the entire Bond series ... Connery's Bond, with his boundless humor and sense of fun and self-confidence, would be out of place in this picture. It actually works better with Lazenby because he is incapable of playing Bond as a bigger-than-life hero; for one thing he hasn't the looks ... Lazenby's Bond also hasn't the assurance of Connery's Bond[,] and that is appropriate in the crumbling, depressing world he finds himself. He seems vulnerable and jittery at times. At the skating rink, he is actually "scared." We worry about him ... "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" doesn't have Connery and it's impossible to ever fully adjust to Lazenby, but I think that it still might be the best Bond film, as many Bond cultists claim." Peary also described "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" as "the most serious", "the most cynical" and "the most tragic" of the Bond films.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Brian Fairbanks differed in his opinion of Lazenby, saying that the film "gives us a James Bond capable of vulnerability, a man who can show fear and is not immune to heartbreak. Lazenby is that man, and his performance is superb." Fairbanks also thought "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" to be "not only the best Bond, it is also the last truly great film in the series. In fact, had the decision been made to end the series, this would have been the perfect final chapter."


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The filmmaker Steven Soderbergh writes that "For me there's no question that cinematically "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is the best Bond film and the only one worth watching repeatedly for reasons other than pure entertainment ... Shot to shot, this movie is beautiful in a way none of the other Bond films are". The director Christopher Nolan also stated that "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was his favourite Bond film; in describing its influence on his own film "Inception" (2010), Nolan said: "What I liked about it that we've tried to emulate in this film is there's a tremendous balance in that movie of action and scale and romanticism and tragedy and emotion."


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: Due to previous criticism, (which has more recently seen it reappraised as one of the best) it has often been referred to as the most overlooked/underated of the Bond Movies.


title: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)

text: The review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 81% based on 54 reviews, and a weighted average of 6.78 out of 10. The website's critical consensus states, "George Lazenby's only appearance as 007 is a fine entry in the series, featuring one of the most intriguing Bond girls in Tracy di Vincenzo (Diana Rigg), breathtaking visuals, and some great ski chases." IGN ranked "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" as the eighth-best Bond film, "Entertainment Weekly" as the sixth, and Norman Wilner of MSN ranked it fifth. Digital Spy listed the film as the best James Bond film to date. The film also became a fan favourite, seeing "ultimate success in the home video market". In September 2012, it was announced that "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" had topped a poll of Bond fans run by "007 Magazine" to determine the greatest ever Bond film. "Goldfinger" came second in the poll and "From Russia With Love" was third.


title: British Museum

text: The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. The British Museum was the first public national museum to cover all fields of knowledge.


title: British Museum

text: The museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the Anglo-Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. It first opened to the public in 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. The museum's expansion over the following 250 years was largely a result of British colonisation and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, or independent spin-offs, the first being the Natural History Museum in 1881.


title: British Museum

text: In 1973, the British Library Act 1972 detached the library department from the British Museum, but it continued to host the now separated British Library in the same Reading Room and building as the museum until 1997. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and as with all national museums in the UK it charges no admission fee, except for loan exhibitions.


title: British Museum

text: Its ownership of a small percentage of its most famous objects originating in other countries is disputed and remains the subject of international controversy through repatriation claims, most notably in the case of the Elgin Marbles of Greece, and the Rosetta Stone of Egypt.


title: British Museum

text: Although today principally a museum of cultural art objects and antiquities, the British Museum was founded as a "universal museum". Its foundations lie in the will of the Anglo-Irish physician and naturalist Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), a London-based doctor and scientist from Ulster. During the course of his lifetime, and particularly after he married the widow of a wealthy Jamaican planter, Sloane gathered a large collection of curiosities, and not wishing to see his collection broken up after death, he bequeathed it to King George II, for the nation, for a sum of £20,000.


title: British Museum

text: At that time, Sloane's collection consisted of around 71,000 objects of all kinds including some 40,000 printed books, 7,000 manuscripts, extensive natural history specimens including 337 volumes of dried plants, prints and drawings including those by Albrecht Dürer and antiquities from Sudan, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Ancient Near and Far East and the Americas.


title: British Museum

text: On 7 June 1753, King George II gave his Royal Assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. The British Museum Act 1753 also added two other libraries to the Sloane collection, namely the Cottonian Library, assembled by Sir Robert Cotton, dating back to Elizabethan times, and the Harleian Library, the collection of the Earls of Oxford. They were joined in 1757 by the "Old Royal Library", now the Royal manuscripts, assembled by various British monarchs. Together these four "foundation collections" included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving manuscript of "Beowulf".


title: British Museum

text: The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public and aiming to collect everything. Sloane's collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary and antiquarian element, and meant that the British Museum now became both National Museum and library.


title: British Museum

text: The body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The trustees rejected Buckingham House, which was later converted into the present day Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost and the unsuitability of its location.


title: British Museum

text: With the acquisition of Montagu House, the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. At this time, the largest parts of collection were the library, which took up the majority of the rooms on the ground floor of Montagu House, and the natural history objects, which took up an entire wing on the second state storey of the building. In 1763, the trustees of the British Museum, under the influence of Peter Collinson and William Watson, employed the former student of Carl Linnaeus, Daniel Solander, to reclassify the natural history collection according to the Linnaean system, thereby making the museum a public centre of learning accessible to the full range of European natural historians. In 1823, King George IV gave the King's Library assembled by George III, and Parliament gave the right to a copy of every book published in the country, thereby ensuring that the museum's library would expand indefinitely. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several further gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts and David Garrick's library of 1,000 printed plays. The predominance of natural history, books and manuscripts began to lessen when in 1772 the museum acquired for £8,410 its first significant antiquities in Sir William Hamilton's "first" collection of Greek vases.


title: British Museum

text: From 1778, a display of objects from the South Seas brought back from the round-the-world voyages of Captain James Cook and the travels of other explorers fascinated visitors with a glimpse of previously unknown lands. The bequest of a collection of books, engraved gems, coins, prints and drawings by Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode in 1800 did much to raise the museum's reputation; but Montagu House became increasingly crowded and decrepit and it was apparent that it would be unable to cope with further expansion.


title: British Museum

text: The museum's first notable addition towards its collection of antiquities, since its foundation, was by Sir William Hamilton (1730–1803), British Ambassador to Naples, who sold his collection of Greek and Roman artefacts to the museum in 1784 together with a number of other antiquities and natural history specimens. A list of donations to the museum, dated 31 January 1784, refers to the Hamilton bequest of a "Colossal Foot of an Apollo in Marble". It was one of two antiquities of Hamilton's collection drawn for him by Francesco Progenie, a pupil of Pietro Fabris, who also contributed a number of drawings of Mount Vesuvius sent by Hamilton to the Royal Society in London.


title: British Museum

text: In the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. After the defeat of the French campaign in the Battle of the Nile, in 1801, the British Museum acquired more Egyptian sculptures and in 1802 King George III presented the Rosetta Stone – key to the deciphering of hieroglyphs. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, laid the foundations of the collection of Egyptian Monumental Sculpture. Many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman sculpture, in 1805. In 1806, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799 to 1803 removed the large collection of marble sculptures from the Parthenon, on the Acropolis in Athens and transferred them to the UK. In 1816 these masterpieces of western art were acquired by the British Museum by Act of Parliament and deposited in the museum thereafter. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815. The Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich.


title: British Museum

text: In 1802 a buildings committee was set up to plan for expansion of the museum, and further highlighted by the donation in 1822 of the King's Library, personal library of King George III's, comprising 65,000 volumes, 19,000 pamphlets, maps, charts and topographical drawings. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an eastern extension to the museum "... for the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it ..." and put forward plans for today's quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the King's Library Gallery began in 1823. The extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. However, following the founding of the National Gallery, London in 1824, the proposed Picture Gallery was no longer needed, and the space on the upper floor was given over to the Natural history collections.


title: British Museum

text: The first Synopsis of the British Museum was published in 1808. This described the contents of the museum, and the display of objects room by room, and updated editions were published every few years.


title: British Museum

text: As Sir Robert Smirke's grand neo-classical building gradually arose, the museum became a construction site. The King's Library, on the ground floor of the East Wing, was handed over in 1827, and was described as one of the finest rooms in London. Although it was not fully open to the general public until 1857, special openings were arranged during The Great Exhibition of 1851.


title: British Museum

text: In 1840, the museum became involved in its first overseas excavations, Charles Fellows's expedition to Xanthos, in Asia Minor, whence came remains of the tombs of the rulers of ancient Lycia, among them the Nereid and Payava monuments. In 1857, Charles Newton was to discover the 4th-century BC Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In the 1840s and 1850s the museum supported excavations in Assyria by A.H. Layard and others at sites such as Nimrud and Nineveh. Of particular interest to curators was the eventual discovery of Ashurbanipal's great library of cuneiform tablets, which helped to make the museum a focus for Assyrian studies.


title: British Museum

text: Sir Thomas Grenville (1755–1846), a trustee of the British Museum from 1830, assembled a library of 20,240 volumes, which he left to the museum in his will. The books arrived in January 1847 in twenty-one horse-drawn vans. The only vacant space for this large library was a room originally intended for manuscripts, between the Front Entrance Hall and the Manuscript Saloon. The books remained here until the British Library moved to St Pancras in 1998.


title: British Museum

text: The opening of the forecourt in 1852 marked the completion of Robert Smirke's 1823 plan, but already adjustments were having to be made to cope with the unforeseen growth of the collections. Infill galleries were constructed for Assyrian sculptures and Sydney Smirke's Round Reading Room, with space for a million books, opened in 1857. Because of continued pressure on space the decision was taken to move natural history to a new building in South Kensington, which would later become the British Museum of Natural History.


title: British Museum

text: Roughly contemporary with the construction of the new building was the career of a man sometimes called the "second founder" of the British Museum, the Italian librarian Anthony Panizzi. Under his supervision, the British Museum Library (now part of the British Library) quintupled in size and became a well-organised institution worthy of being called a national library, the largest library in the world after the National Library of Paris. The quadrangle at the centre of Smirke's design proved to be a waste of valuable space and was filled at Panizzi's request by a circular Reading Room of cast iron, designed by Smirke's brother, Sydney Smirke.


title: British Museum

text: Until the mid-19th century, the museum's collections were relatively circumscribed but, in 1851, with the appointment to the staff of Augustus Wollaston Franks to curate the collections, the museum began for the first time to collect British and European medieval antiquities, prehistory, branching out into Asia and diversifying its holdings of ethnography. A real coup for the museum was the purchase in 1867, over French objections, of the Duke of Blacas's wide-ranging and valuable collection of antiquities. Overseas excavations continued and John Turtle Wood discovered the remains of the 4th century BC Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, another Wonder of the Ancient World.


title: British Museum

text: The natural history collections were an integral part of the British Museum until their removal to the new British Museum of Natural History in 1887, nowadays the Natural History Museum. With the departure and the completion of the new White Wing (fronting Montague Street) in 1884, more space was available for antiquities and ethnography and the library could further expand. This was a time of innovation as electric lighting was introduced in the Reading Room and exhibition galleries.


title: British Museum

text: The William Burges collection of armoury was bequeathed to the museum in 1881. In 1882, the museum was involved in the establishment of the independent Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society) the first British body to carry out research in Egypt. A bequest from Miss Emma Turner in 1892 financed excavations in Cyprus. In 1897 the death of the great collector and curator, A. W. Franks, was followed by an immense bequest of 3,300 finger rings, 153 drinking vessels, 512 pieces of continental porcelain, 1,500 netsuke, 850 inro, over 30,000 bookplates and miscellaneous items of jewellery and plate, among them the Oxus Treasure.


title: British Museum

text: In 1898 Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild bequeathed the Waddesdon Bequest, the glittering contents from his New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor. This consisted of almost 300 pieces of "objets d'art et de vertu" which included exquisite examples of jewellery, plate, enamel, carvings, glass and maiolica, among them the Holy Thorn Reliquary, probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry. The collection was in the tradition of a "Schatzkammer" such as those formed by the Renaissance princes of Europe. Baron Ferdinand's will was most specific, and failure to observe the terms would make it void, the collection should be


title: British Museum

text: By the last years of the 19th century, The British Museum's collections had increased to the extent that its building was no longer large enough. In 1895 the trustees purchased the 69 houses surrounding the museum with the intention of demolishing them and building around the west, north and east sides of the museum. The first stage was the construction of the northern wing beginning 1906.


title: British Museum

text: All the while, the collections kept growing. Emil Torday collected in Central Africa, Aurel Stein in Central Asia, D.G. Hogarth, Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence excavated at Carchemish. Around this time, the American collector and philanthropist J Pierpont Morgan donated a substantial number of objects to the museum, including William Greenwell's collection of prehistoric artefacts from across Europe which he had purchased for £10,000 in 1908. Morgan had also acquired a major part of Sir John Evans's coin collection, which was later sold to the museum by his son John Pierpont Morgan Junior in 1915. In 1918, because of the threat of wartime bombing, some objects were evacuated via the London Post Office Railway to Holborn, the National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth) and a country house near Malvern. On the return of antiquities from wartime storage in 1919 some objects were found to have deteriorated. A conservation laboratory was set up in May 1920 and became a permanent department in 1931. It is today the oldest in continuous existence. In 1923, the British Museum welcomed over one million visitors.


title: British Museum

text: New mezzanine floors were constructed and book stacks rebuilt in an attempt to cope with the flood of books. In 1931, the art dealer Sir Joseph Duveen offered funds to build a gallery for the Parthenon sculptures. Designed by the American architect John Russell Pope, it was completed in 1938. The appearance of the exhibition galleries began to change as dark Victorian reds gave way to modern pastel shades.


title: British Museum

text: Following the retirement of George Francis Hill as Director and Principal Librarian in 1936, he was succeeded by John Forsdyke.


title: British Museum

text: As tensions with Nazi Germany developed and it appeared that war may be imminent Forsdyke came to the view that with the likelihood of far worse air-raids than that experienced in World War I that the museum had to make preparations to remove its most valuable items to secure locations. Following the Munich crisis Forsdyke ordered 3,300 No-Nail Boxes and stored them in the basement of Duveen Gallery. At the same time he began identifying and securing suitable locations. As a result the museum was able to quickly commence relocating selected items on 24 August 1939, (a mere day after the Home Secretary advised them to do so), to secure basements, country houses, Aldwych Underground station and the National Library of Wales. Many items were relocated in early 1942 from their initial dispersal locations to a newly developed facility at Westwood Quarry in Wiltshire.


title: British Museum

text: The evacuation was timely, for in 1940 the Duveen Gallery was severely damaged by bombing. Meanwhile, prior to the war, the Nazis had sent a researcher to the British Museum for several years with the aim of "compiling an anti-Semitic history of Anglo-Jewry".


title: British Museum

text: After the war, the museum continued to collect from all countries and all centuries: among the most spectacular additions were the 2600 BC Mesopotamian treasure from Ur, discovered during Leonard Woolley's 1922–34 excavations. Gold, silver and garnet grave goods from the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo (1939) and late Roman silver tableware from Mildenhall, Suffolk (1946). The immediate post-war years were taken up with the return of the collections from protection and the restoration of the museum after the Blitz. Work also began on restoring the damaged Duveen Gallery.


title: British Museum

text: In 1953, the museum celebrated its bicentenary. Many changes followed: the first full-time in-house designer and publications officer were appointed in 1964, the Friends organisation was set up in 1968, an Education Service established in 1970 and publishing house in 1973. In 1963, a new Act of Parliament introduced administrative reforms. It became easier to lend objects, the constitution of the board of trustees changed and the Natural History Museum became fully independent. By 1959 the Coins and Medals office suite, completely destroyed during the war, was rebuilt and re-opened, attention turned towards the gallery work with new tastes in design leading to the remodelling of Robert Smirke's Classical and Near Eastern galleries. In 1962 the Duveen Gallery was finally restored and the Parthenon Sculptures were moved back into it, once again at the heart of the museum.


title: British Museum

text: By the 1970s the museum was again expanding. More services for the public were introduced; visitor numbers soared, with the temporary exhibition "Treasures of Tutankhamun" in 1972, attracting 1,694,117 visitors, the most successful in British history. In the same year the Act of Parliament establishing the British Library was passed, separating the collection of manuscripts and printed books from the British Museum. This left the museum with antiquities; coins, medals and paper money; prints and drawings; and ethnography. A pressing problem was finding space for additions to the library which now required an extra of shelving each year. The Government suggested a site at St Pancras for the new British Library but the books did not leave the museum until 1997.


title: British Museum

text: The departure of the British Library to a new site at St Pancras, finally achieved in 1998, provided the space needed for the books. It also created the opportunity to redevelop the vacant space in Robert Smirke's 19th-century central quadrangle into the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court – the largest covered square in Europe – which opened in 2000. The ethnography collections, which had been housed in the short-lived Museum of Mankind at 6 Burlington Gardens from 1970, were returned to new purpose-built galleries in the museum in 2000.


title: British Museum

text: The museum again readjusted its collecting policies as interest in "modern" objects: prints, drawings, medals and the decorative arts reawakened. Ethnographical fieldwork was carried out in places as diverse as New Guinea, Madagascar, Romania, Guatemala and Indonesia and there were excavations in the Near East, Egypt, Sudan and the UK. The Weston Gallery of Roman Britain, opened in 1997, displayed a number of recently discovered hoards which demonstrated the richness of what had been considered an unimportant part of the Roman Empire. The museum turned increasingly towards private funds for buildings, acquisitions and other purposes.


title: British Museum

text: Today the museum no longer houses collections of natural history, and the books and manuscripts it once held now form part of the independent British Library. The museum nevertheless preserves its universality in its collections of artefacts representing the cultures of the world, ancient and modern. The original 1753 collection has grown to over 13 million objects at the British Museum, 70 million at the Natural History Museum and 150 million at the British Library.


title: British Museum

text: The Round Reading Room, which was designed by the architect Sydney Smirke, opened in 1857. For almost 150 years researchers came here to consult the museum's vast library. The Reading Room closed in 1997 when the national library (the British Library) moved to a new building at St Pancras. Today it has been transformed into the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Centre.


title: British Museum

text: With the bookstacks in the central courtyard of the museum empty, the demolition for Lord Foster's glass-roofed Great Court could begin. The Great Court, opened in 2000, while undoubtedly improving circulation around the museum, was criticised for having a lack of exhibition space at a time when the museum was in serious financial difficulties and many galleries were closed to the public. At the same time the African collections that had been temporarily housed in 6 Burlington Gardens were given a new gallery in the North Wing funded by the Sainsbury family – with the donation valued at £25 million.


title: British Museum

text: As part of its very large website, the museum has the largest online database of objects in the collection of any museum in the world, with 2,000,000 individual object entries, 650,000 of them illustrated, online at the start of 2012. There is also a "Highlights" database with longer entries on over 4,000 objects, and several specialised online research catalogues and online journals (all free to access). In 2013 the museum's website received 19.5 millions visits, an increase of 47% from the previous year.


title: British Museum

text: In 2013 the museum received a record 6.7 million visitors, an increase of 20% from the previous year. Popular exhibitions including "Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum" and "Ice Age Art" are credited with helping fuel the increase in visitors. Plans were announced in September 2014 to recreate the entire building along with all exhibits in the video game "Minecraft" in conjunction with members of the public. A number of films have been shot at the British Museum.


title: British Museum

text: The British Museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport through a three-year funding agreement. Its head is the Director of the British Museum. The British Museum was run from its inception by a 'principal librarian' (when the book collections were still part of the museum), a role that was renamed 'director and principal librarian' in 1898, and 'director' in 1973 (on the separation of the British Library).


title: British Museum

text: A board of 25 trustees (with the director as their accounting officer for the purposes of reporting to Government) is responsible for the general management and control of the museum, in accordance with the British Museum Act 1963 and the Museums and Galleries Act 1992. Prior to the 1963 Act, it was chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker of the House of Commons. The board was formed on the museum's inception to hold its collections in trust for the nation without actually owning them themselves, and now fulfil a mainly advisory role. Trustee appointments are governed by the regulatory framework set out in the code of practice on public appointments issued by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.