Movie directors just do not like the plots of their movies revealed ahead of a premier. “Did no one tell latest Bond girl Gemma Arterton? Poor Gemma Arterton who is a refreshingly honest actor — who cheerfully describes herself as a “motormouth” — has been cast in the upcoming Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, and she has been chatting merrily away to the press about what happens in it.

Apparently she is an MI6 babe who has to keep Daniel Craig’s 007 under control “in Bolivia”, the villains are after “a lot of oil”, she “sort of comes to a sticky end”, and her death scene is a “homage to something iconic”. By mentioning Diana Rigg elsewhere, she appears to hint that this might mean the way Rigg, newly married to George Lazenby’s Bond, expired in On Her Majesty’s Secret

Service.

Yikes. You can get into trouble for that sort of thing. Arterton has clearly never heard the name Tyler Nelson - two words that cast a chill of fear into everyone in the business. Nelson was the 24-year-old ballet dancer cast in a tiny role as a “dancing Russian soldier” in the forthcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Tyler excitedly shot his mouth off to his local Oklahoma paper about all the top secret things in the script: that Indy’s looking for a priceless skull in the South American jungle, that the Russians take Indy hostage, that they threaten to kill the mother of his kids, and that the evil Russian torturer is played by Cate Blanchett.

Director Stephen Spielberg was furious and cut Nelson out of the film, prompting the director’s spokesman, Marvin Levy, to chillingly announce: “Who knows whether that particular person will ever work in this town again?” Movie producers are fanatically secretive about their latest opus, anally retentive about what they reveal in advance, no matter how boring and banal it is.

Actors are wheeled out at press junkets to mouth meaningless banalities, and God help them if they reveal that there is car chase or a helicopter crash or a midless shootout in the new James Bond film. These days, it is all about maximising the impact for the opening box office weekend. The thrills and spills have to be kept under wraps.