The Look Of Love

Burt Bacharach, who wrote this song with Hal David, told Record Collector magazine: "I had Dusty sing that very sexy. Dusty was very open to suggestions. To listen to the vocal back with her she'd have to go into a control room to hear it. She wanted to hear it alone. She was very tough on herself. But she did a great job."

"The Look Of Love" was written by Bacharach and David for the movie Casino Royale, a spoof of the James Bond films. In the same Record Collector interview he discussed writing specifically for a film: "When I'm scoring a picture, whether it's Butch Cassidy or Casino Royale or What's New Pussycat?, all those melodies that turned into what became hit songs came from what I saw on the screen when I was scoring and what I heard. The first thing is you service the motion picture. If you're lucky enough and you have a theme that turns into a hit whether it was Dusty (Springfield) singing 'The Look Of Love' in Casino Royale, what was most important there was the sexuality of Ursula Andress wearing very little clothes and making very sexy theme with the saxophone playing the melody of 'The Look Of Love.' Then we put Dusty on. First and foremost is it's written for the picture, you don't force it in."

Mike Myers credits the song for inspiring his Austin Powers character, which he introduced on Saturday Night Live in the early '90s as the leader of a faux mod band, then as a '60s-era spy for the 1997 film. "I was driving home from hockey practice in Los Angeles one day, shortly after my father had passed away, and 'The Look Of Love' came on the radio, and I instantly felt the character and the movie of Austin Powers enter my brain," he said. "Peter Sellers was my dad's hero, and that scene with Sellers and Ursula Andress in Casino Royale when 'The Look Of Love' is playing just delighted my dad, because it was a combination of Sellers, James Bond and Burt Bacharach." The first film in the series, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, also features a cameo appearance from Bacharach.