"Here Comes the Biggest Bond of All!" blared the posters for Thunderball, and with a budget three times that of the super-successful Goldfinger, the fourth film in the series is definitely the first epic-scale 007 adventure. Hijacking two nuclear warheads from a NATO training flight, SPECTRE threatens to destroy a major world city unless the North Atlantic powers pay a ransom of £100 million. Following a clue to the Bahamas, Bond encounters SPECTRE's No. 2 man and the mastermind behind the scheme, the eye-patched Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), who has concealed the warheads in a shark-filled grotto. As the clock ticks down, Bond enlists the aid of Largo's beautiful mistress Domino (Claudine Auger) and calls in a team of US Navy frogmen for a showdown with Largo's aquatic army. Cementing the setpiece formula initiated by Goldfinger — an unceasing series of high points stretching from Bond's opening jetpack escape to the exciting final battle on a runaway hydrofoil — Thunderball also introduced another Bondian trademark: the deadly female assassin, with Luciana Paluzzi's scarlet-tressed Fiona Volpe setting the standard for the many pulchritudinous dragon ladies to follow.