~~~
It always seemed very odd to me too, except that it made sense casting-wise.
Connery never would have worked as the naive young castoff. He is 007. Ramirez was a much better role for him, even though he is a Scot and he played a spanish egyptian.
Also, I always wondered if there was a strange reason for casting Lambert in this roll, which is that he actually resembles the actor Ian Charleson who played the Scot Eric Liddell 5 years previous in the movie Chariots of Fire.
