Things are looking decidedly bleak for British Intelligence, in both senses of the term. SMERSH has begun to sabotage global stability; no less than 11 agents have been lost; and to make matters worse, our greatest secret agent, 007 is languishing in stately retirement.M - together with the heads of the CIA (from Washington D.C.) and KGB (from the U.S.S.R.) - have only one hope: to bring Sir James Bond (David Niven) out of retirement and into the field. Finding himself pitched against an opposition of fiendish intensity - an array of female secret agents armed with explosive grouse; a baccarat-playing illusionist (Orson Welles) and a neurotic megalomaniac (Woody Allen) - Bond launches his brilliant plan... 'from now on, all agents will be known as James Bond, including the girls'.