Bezant

Dinosaurs on the Moon!

Daily Timewaster (so you know how valuable this post will be) posts a picture, which leads to the above scene from Moon Zero Two.


Moon Zero Two Inception
One of the stars of this Hammer Film is Catherine Schell:

Born in Budapest, Hungary, Catherine is the scion of a once wealthy German family. Her father, the Baron Paul Schell von Bauschlott, was a well-respected diplomat until the Nazis confiscated their estates during WWII. Her family was living in poverty until 1948 when they sought asylum in Vienna and Salzburg as the communist regime began to take hold in Hungary. In 1950, her family emigrated to the States and the Baron renounced his title in order for his family to gain citizenship. In 1957, her father joined Radio Free Europe, taking the family to Munich where she developed an interest for acting and trained at the prestigious Falconberg School. - paraphrased from IMDB

Sounds an awful lot like Veruschka.

Catherine Schell as Maya, the shapeshifting alien in Space: 1999

Catherine was in a few other science fiction films and also had a part in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service.


On Her Majesty's Secret Service (2/9) Movie CLIP - Just a Slight Stiffness (1969) HD
Catherine is the woman with the long blond hair who ask's James 'please, what is a bezant' (at the 1:25 mark). James' answer sounds like 'female boar' which sounds totally bogus. Who is going to put four sows on their coat of arms? Well, I'm sure someone did, once, but it wasn't any of James ancestors, I can tell you that. I suppose the writers were looking for some kind of double entendre, but if that's the case I totally missed it.

James Bond's family Coat of Arms

Turns out Bezants are the gold circles in the center and there are only three of them, not four, but's that kind of like quibbling over whether James was called Jimmy or James when he was a kid.

Gold solidus of Theodosius II (r. 408-450), minted in Constantinople, 430–439, Athens, Numismatic Museum

Bezants were originally gold coins from Byzantium.