Leica Release D-Lux 7 007 Edition Camera

Leica Camera have released their new D-Lux 007 Edition compact camera.

Celebrating Bond’s debut appearance at the Baccarat table in Dr. No (1962), the special edition commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Bond franchise, and is limited to 1,962 units.

The camera is housed in a leather holster-style case, with the top plate printed with the 007 logo. The camera trim is made from high-performance, rhombus-textured material and also features a gun barrel lens cap.

Coinciding with the camera’s launch is a new London exhibition, ’Photographs from the James Bond Archive’. Curated by producer Michael G. Wilson, the exhibition features images from all six decades of the 007 films and is open to the public at Leica Gallery London, 64-66 Duke Street, Mayfair W1K 6JD until March 21 2023. Opening hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday 10am-6pm, Wednesday 10am-7pm and Sunday 12pm-6pm.

Explore the camera at 007Store.com. Read more on the exhibition here.

Ricou Browning (1930 – 2023)

Ricou Browning, Underwater Director for Thunderball has sadly passed away.

The thrilling underwater fight sequences in the fourth James Bond film between SPECTRE and US aqua-paratroopers, helped by 007, were directed by Browning.

Browning’s other work includes The Creature From The Black Lagoon, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Don’t Give Up the Ship, Sea Hunt, Gentle Ben, Salty, Mr. No Legs, Day of the Dolphin, Flipper and Caddyshack.

Our thoughts are with his family at this time.

Movie Magic With John Richardson – Part 1

Though you might not know his name, you will definitely know John Richardson’s work – the pioneering special effects legend’s movie CV stretches back five action-and-adventure-packed decades. He’s been Oscar nominated six times (he won for Aliens in 1986) and his groundbreaking screen magic is seen in all eight Harry Potter films, Aliens, Superman, A Bridge Too Far, Straw Dogs, Rollerball, The Omen, Starship Troopers, Cliffhanger, Far and Away and Willow, amongst more than 100 films. Despite the extraordinary range and breadth of his movie experience, it’s still his nine James Bond adventures that have given John his most treasured movie memories. “I’ve been privileged to work with some of the Hollywood greats, a very wide swath of different technicians and actors on both sides of the camera,” he told 007.com when we sat down to discuss his extraordinary career, “but the Bond films have always remained closest to my heart.”

Why is it that the Bond films remain so special to you?

Who wouldn’t enjoy working on movies where you get to build huge sets, blow things up and also go to all the wonderful places where we filmed? We did really difficult and exciting things like filming 60 ft long model submarines 120 feet down off the Bahamas and flying model aircraft, building 40 foot long airships to do various things and conjure up different model scenes. Which I think to this day, is probably some of my proudest work – because I think many of the audiences when they were looking at the movies, didn’t even realise that they were models. So that, for me, has been one of the highlights, and to work with that sort of family atmosphere and receive their protection. It really was a family feeling and I am still in touch with people from the Bond family, which is lovely.

How did you get your film industry break?

Nepotism, very simply. My father was a special effects man and he started in the business in 1921. He worked on a lot of films with Cubby Broccoli and Irving Allen in the 1950s. Things like The Red Beret in 1953, High Flight in 1957 and Zarak in 1957. He also worked on Lawrence of Arabia and a whole bunch of movies throughout that era. I pretty much grew up on film sets. From the age of about 10 or 11 I used to go to work with him and learn the ropes during school holidays. I’ve worked on films like Exodus, Lawrence of Arabia, and then I left school in 1962. The first film I worked on was The Victors, which had a huge cast, directed by Carl Forman and then worked with my father for the next 10 or 15 years.

Your father was an industry legend – what was it like working with him?

A lot of people say it’s hard working with your father, and I suppose to a degree it is because if he’s gonna tell somebody off on a crew it is invariably his son, because it’s easier to do that than someone else. It was a great privilege to work with him though because he was the best. Certainly, throughout that era. He was very well respected, and was probably the most knowledgeable regarding the use of explosives. He was very safety conscious, had a great track record, so I was learning from the master and was very aware of it. He taught me well. He reached a point in his life where he wanted to slow down and retire and I started getting offers of films myself. Which was, I suppose, a little bit daunting.

What was the first film you supervised on your own?

The first film I supervised all the way through was Duffy with James Coburn, James Mason, James Fox and Susannah York, directed by a lovely director called Robert Parrish. I had to go out to the south of Spain and blow up a very big, real fishing boat. When I say blow it up, I mean, blow it up! We filmed it from a helicopter, which was challenging itself because I had to be able to fire it by remote control. Which, back in the 1960s, I think it was one of the first times radio control was used to do something on that scale. I was 21 years old and in charge of the effects on the movie. So by the time I was doing James Bond films I was still relatively young, in my thirties and forties.

You got your start in the Bond films with Moonraker – how did that come about? 

I joined the Bond team on Moonraker which was an interesting and fun film to work on. The Bond team were struggling a bit with the volume of what they were doing. I’d worked with both the director Lewis Gilbert and Bill Cartlidge, the producer, before and they called me up and asked if I could go to Paris and talk to them. I did and I ended up taking over most of the filming in South America and all of the boat chase sequences in Florida. It sort of relieved the pressure on other team members like Derek Meddings. Derek was doing the model work on Moonraker. Johnny Evans was looking after the floor stuff in France and Italy. I got together with Derek and we talked it through and came to an agreement of how much I could take over because it was fairly late in the day to get everything prepared and shipped out to the location. 

So for Moonraker, was it the boat chase you were tasked with creating?

I took over the sequences that were going to be filmed in Iguazu and Florida, and it was mainly the boat chases and everything related to that. One of the things that happened was that they had recced the Iguazu Falls much earlier in the year. They’d looked at them when there was probably a lot less water going over the top. I went out there with the second unit director in November with a view to going back in January to film. They wanted to get Bond’s boat, which was a two tonne fibreglass speed boat, down in the river and right over the top of the waterfall, which was about a 360-foot drop. There was a vast amount of water coming down. It’s a huge river and I looked at it and said, “Personally I think the chances of it working because of all the rocks and everything out there is challenging. I’m quite happy to have a go if you want me to.” And then ended up with myself and one of my assistants, Johnny Morris, roped together going out about a quarter of a mile upstream of the edge of the falls. We’d have to walk, float, sink or swim or whatever from one rock to the next. I’d get to one rock and then I’d hold the rope to belay John while he swam over to join me. Then we pulled the boat across behind us and we did this all the way out. We got the boat down to about 100 feet short of the edge. It took us a whole day to get the boat out into that position and that was from first thing in the morning till late afternoon. Anyway, the next day, we set up all the cameras and got word over the radio to release the boat. We released the boat. It went thundering down in the water to the edge of the fall where it promptly impaled itself on a rock. Literally right on the edge of the fall with part of the boat sticking over the edge. 

How on earth did you deal with that?

We went back to the hotel that night to have a meeting to decide what to do. The second unit director said, “Well, the boat can’t stay there. How are YOU going to move it?” I suggested that as I’d got a harness with me, we take the helicopter out which had a winch on it. They could lower me down onto the boat and the rock that it was stuck on and I’d see if I could push it or shove it over. We tried that and it didn’t work. We then figured out a plan: we tie a rope onto the cargo lifting winch under the helicopter and a rope onto my harness, as well as the winch, and they’d lower me down on the winch. Then they could hold me in place. Anyway, we flew out 30 feet underneath. Johnny, my sidekick, was in the helicopter signalling to the pilot and I think they dropped me in the water twice and in the bushes three times. Eventually, I got hold of the boat and signalled to John who told the pilot to stop flying. I suddenly heard a very strange ping-ping-ping-ping-ping noise over the sound of the helicopter. I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was quite loud. Then I realised it was the stitches on my harness breaking under the tension. I had two choices: do I stay with the boat or go with the helicopter? I figured there were probably more stitches left so I held on. I went with the helicopter and it took about 15 minutes to get me back up. As luck would have it, it rained up river overnight and a large torrent came and washed the boat over the falls in the middle of the night, never to be seen again.

That must’ve been terrifying? 

I was scared stiff. I can’t say I enjoyed it in the moment. But I often thought about it after. I always raised it with the stunt teams that whatever they do, they get a bonus for doing it! But I suppose I can put it down to experience.

You returned to 007 with Octopussy. It features some all time great 007 sequences starting with the Acrostar “Bede” jet right as the film opens. That must’ve been an amazing film to work on?

I was on Octopussy from the beginning. The jet was in the script and it was flown by Corkey Fornof who had said that he could fly through a hangar which everybody was excited about. But of course, when it came down to the nitty gritty of how to shoot it, there couldn’t be anybody in or around the hangar at the time. I think we worked out that with the speed the jet was flying it would be in the hangar for less than half a second or something ridiculous. So filmically, it wasn’t gonna work. So John Glen asked what we could do. We came up with a foreground model and built a third scale Bede jet and a third scale hangar door that we set up in front of the real hangar at Northolt Airfield. We lined it up exactly with the hangar doors and it looked like the plane had flown into the hangar. Then we did the same thing at the other end for the plane leaving it. 

Is it true you attached a real plane to a car to shoot the sequence?

I had this wonderful idea that we could get an old car, cut the top off it, paint it camouflage colours and add a steel polearm from the centre of the car with a gimbal on top with an air hydraulic system that would bank the real full size jet. We could bank it from side to side. So the idea was, I would drive it through the hangar at 75 miles per hour with stuntmen and people running hither and thither with some foreground dressing to help hide the car and stuntmen closing the doors at the far end to a stop which I think allowed me about six inches spare on either side. We did it about four times. I think literally 75 miles an hour was our speed. The last time we did it, I exited the hangar and the throttle on the Jaguar had jammed. One of my guys, Johnny Morris, was lying on the floor in the back of the car. So I got us outside on the tarmac at RAF Northolt where we were filming and we were in front of one of the Royal Air Force jet planes parked on the grass. It took me a few seconds to realise why the wretched thing wouldn’t slow down and of course it dawned on me then that it was the throttle. So I was able to switch the ignition off and steer the car onto the grass, I think much to the amusement of all the RAF guys. We ended up spinning across the grass until we finally came to a stop. It’s quite interesting to drive a Jaguar with a full size jet on top! That still remains one of my favourite sequences because it does encompass all the different sorts of types of visual effects. 

Tell us about the knife throwing?

Some stunts were done for real by a guy called Barrie Winship and some by Tony and David Meyer who played the twins. The rest of the knife throwing scenes were created with wirework. Which is essentially where we had knives going down wires, including one in the forest scene that went in by Roger’s ear as he was pinned to the door. However, when they were doing the rotating disk knife throwing scenes in Octopussy’s circus you couldn’t put a wire on that because it was going round and round; the wire would get twisted. So we put flick-up knives built into the spinning disk. As it was going round, suddenly a knife would flick up through the disk. They pop up so quickly your eyes don’t catch it. 

What are some of the other props and effects you worked on for Octopussy?

We had the three-wheeled Indian Tuk Tuk taxis that we souped up for all the chase scenes. We also had the rope in Q’s office which I tested myself and the wire inside broke and swiftly posited me on my arse from about 12 feet which was uncomfortable, but that’s why you test these things. We had cars on the railway lines, including a Mercedes being fired from an air cannon into the water. Some of the stuntmen thought that the car might hit them and jumped into the water. It didn’t though and landed perfectly, even gently nudging a boat. We created a yo-yo saw which really worked and we mounted one after filming and gave it to Cubby. For the lovers of poison pen letters we created a pen that dispensed acid, which was actually tartaric acid found in wine mixed with some bicarbonate of soda to give the fizz effect. There was also the blowing up of the hangar in the opening which required us to blow the thing sky high. It was great fun and I am lucky to have spent a lifetime in special effects. 

In part two of our conversation with John he tells us about filming on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, turning a cello case into an escape vehicle and a one-of-a-kind autograph from Cubby Broccoli. Read on 007.com next week.

John Richardson’s books Making Movie Magic and Making Movie Magic – The Photographs are available from 007store.com.

Harrods To Host 007 x The Macallan Experience

Harrods are to host an interactive experience celebrating 60 years of James Bond in partnership with The Macallan.

For four weeks, from Sunday February 19, the department store will exhibit signature artefacts from the 007 archive to commemorate the release of the Scottish whisky distillery’s 60th anniversary range of six Bond-themed bottles.

At the heart of the experience is a timeline of original concept art and storyboards chronicling the creative process of the Bond movies, which is also featured on the packaging for The Macallan’s 60th Anniversary single malt.

Central to the exhibit is Little Nellie, the autogyro commanded by Sean Connery in 1967’s You Only Live Twice. Other memorabilia on display include Oddjob’s bowler hat from Goldfinger (1964) and Jaws’ metal teeth from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).

Exclusive to purchase at Harrods in the UK is a limited edition Globe-Trotter case containing all six bottles of The Macallan’s 60th Anniversary Release.

Bringing Bond’s Jamaican Retreat to Life

Art director Neal Callow, production designer Mark Tildesley and set decorator Veronique Mallory discuss how they created James Bond’s house in Jamaica, reflected the region’s history on screen and added unseen touches of Ian Fleming to a unique set featured in No Time To Die.

Where do you start to try and merge all the elements together for Bond’s Jamaican home?

Neal: With a film like No Time To Die, it all starts with the script. Taking the example of the Jamaica house, James Bond has retired from service from MI6 and he’s moved to Jamaica. He’s living this semi-retired life somewhere in a remote part of the north coast of Jamaica, so there’s your starting point. What is this guy like? For that, you can go back to what he was always like as a character through the Fleming books and the early films but you obviously modernise that, and then you think what would his house look like? What would he be doing in his house? Would he like to go sailing or fishing? He’s probably fixing up a few things around the place. He’s going to really want to blend in with the local population and have a bit of privacy to his world. Those conversations, we have with the production designer, Mark Tildesley. The set decorator is very important for that thing as well. Veronique Mallory was our set decorator and obviously the director who will have opinions of how to articulate that personality through environmental design. We’re looking at the legacy of the design of Bond films. We’re looking at the character and then we’re using all of those foundations to then sketch out what his house might look like in Jamaica.

Veronique, what was your approach when you’re dressing that set?

Veronique: We imagine the life of a gentleman who is reaching a certain age. We wanted to show the life of someone who has retreated from the active world but at the same time being into social interaction, interested in contemporary culture, very refined in his taste. As he’s a man who sails a lot and, like sailors in general, he likes handcrafted pieces of furniture and handcrafted objects, I tried to go along that way. I wanted to give James Bond and various surroundings this touch of old wood vintage choices that are mixed up with very contemporary objects. Every object for me was chosen by Bond because he is a man of great taste, he’s a man of intelligence and he wouldn’t live with some mainstream objects. I went looking for pieces that could be existing in a world but someone who would have been leaving the world and choosing another path for his life than staying in a big city. The objects chosen and the furniture chosen were some iconic designer pieces but not produced anymore. We recreate them and remake them because these pieces these days are museum pieces. You can’t have them and I tried to create an environment which was quite unique and original. They had to be very much touched beforehand by the hands of the workers, by the makers.

Mark, how important was it to go to Jamaica and have an authentic design for Bond’s home there?

Mark: We went to Jamaica, which is the spiritual home of Bond movies and we find in the story of No Time To Die that Bond has retired there now. We were tasked with the idea that we would have to give him a home. “How do we make this glamorous?” A simple house won’t be glamorous but there’s something about the place where we built this house. It was just such a spectacular cove. I’m not suggesting that anything you put there would be wonderful but it was, in itself, a piece of beautiful nature. It’s really absolutely crystal clear waters and super tropical plants and wonderful sounds of birds and gorgeous skies. The task was to build him a house and we went through various forms of thinking about what that house could be. Should he have bought a house that already existed? Has he made it himself? Has he adapted a house that’s partly built? One of the things is that Bond is discombobulated there and sort of running out of ideas. He’s sort of a fish out of water. He’s really built to be an agent in action, and to be moping around on an island is not really his deal.

We built this house and it is very much a house by the sea, it’s about him getting in his boat and sailing away. Does a bit of fishing, does a bit of venturing and the only other things he’s doing in it, in terms of character based things, are he’s planning an escape. He has maps and books about where else he could test himself.

It really did feel like a place in Jamaica, it had a sense of location that it was grounded there. Was that something you were thinking about when you were bringing that together?

Veronique: Yes, it was, certainly. One of the main characteristics of that house was to have the sense of this Jamaica. Very laid back and very, very refined world in terms of fabrics, prints, woodwork. The house was built like that and what was dressed inside had the same kind of flavour.

Neal, the outside feels very local, and the inside feels like an amalgamation of the old and the new and also someone who’s got time so is that what you meant by things fixing up like the original?

Neal: Exactly. Veronique thought about all of those things so what we wanted to do there was to give the impression of an Englishman living in Jamaica for a start, so there’s things that would be recognisable as British set decorating or props lying around. The exterior of the house, and the construction methodology of the house, we wanted it to be Jamaican. We wanted it to look like a Jamaican built place but you’ll notice that there are certain aesthetic tweaks to it.

For example, there’s a big round window above one of the facades and that’s like a classic Bond design. It’s a piece of design iconography that we get these big, round shapes. Ken Adam was always about these simple, brutal shapes, creating amazing space, but not being particularly over complicated. We wanted to put something like that in there that gave a nod to Ken Adam but we wanted it to feel like it was a house that Bond hadn’t had built for himself. Bond had moved into that house and had been able to fix it up and do his own things to it and then he brought what little possessions that he has, over from whatever storage locker he has and put it around the house. That’s where you get those interesting choices of books, pictures, bits and other pieces. We see lots of Ken Adam classic set design in the film – Ken Adam uses a lot of that circular iconography, and it has become a classic design icon within Bond legacy production design. It’s always nice to get bits of that back in and we use that elsewhere in No Time To Die as well which again, if you look at that arrangement of sets, there’s a nod in there as well.

As we all know from James Bond, he’s an effortlessly stylish guy. So there’s certain kinds of furniture that he may have picked up locally, which are stylish but not too ostentatious or anything like that. Again, it all comes back really to thinking about what the character of Bond is. Production design for film in the end is about light. In fact, cinema is all about light in general so when we’re designing film sets, subconsciously or consciously, we’re designing for light and shadow. For a house like that one in Jamaica, we were very careful as to which way to orient the house in terms of the sun, the way the sun came up and the sunset at the end of each day. Obviously, all of those slatted doors on the side of Bond’s home, we had them made in a way that we could adjust the angle of the louvres in the door so that we could get the correct amount of light coming in or be able to shoot through them to the outside. So the whole thing, like most film sets, really is a lighting gobo which has been designed with the correct materials and the correct field tactility to tell the story of where we are. It is about designing for photography in the end and making everything look great on screen.

What are your favourite items and were any of them particularly tricky to get a hold of?

Veronique: In the living room, I especially like two or three of the chairs that were designed in the 60’s, in the 50’s by Italian or French or American designers like Lena Dubois who was an architect in Italy and created very interesting pieces of leather seats. We made one of those. A french designer also worked for creating houses in Africa, tropical houses. This atmosphere of tropic was there even within a piece of furniture and with the work of these amazing people.

Of course, you’ve got the reproduction of the Fleming desk as well.

Neal: Fleming wrote the novels about James Bond in his home, GoldenEye, which is a few miles down the road from where we built the 007 house in No Time To Die. A lot of Fleming’s experience of his own life was obviously interwoven into the character of James Bond. We thought that was a really nice touch to be able to have the desk at which those books were written in James Bond’s bedroom because it connects Bond back to Fleming. Also, it has this aesthetic taste which Fleming himself might have had, which we would probably rightfully assume he would have given James Bond. Fleming was into lots of contemporary food and what would be considered exotic foods back in the day. Fleming’s own experience of what he would have chosen is interwoven into 007 so there’s a connection between the character of Bond and Fleming beyond that of just the fact that he wrote a character.

With the building of the house, how was it then that you approached the construction? Did you hire local crews to help create the Jamaican world for 007?

Neal: Well, it’s a combination of a few things, really. One is that we worked with an amazing construction manager called Steve Byrne who runs a company called Palette Scenery with his brother. He is an incredible guy and he also has a way of doing these jobs in foreign countries where he only hires local people to do it. So we had a carpenter, Benny Gillespie, and a painter called Nick. Other than that, everyone else was a local Jamaican worker and the way that Steve does this is he goes out early to the location that we’re proposing to build stuff at. He’ll go and spend his time going around meeting people asking: Does anyone know anyone who’s a carpenter, painter? Before we know it, he’ll have a team of people who are local to the area and are enthusiastic to do the job in their neighbourhood. He will do that on every job we go to. It’s an amazing kind of methodology. What that does for us, as a production, is it means that the people who are working on the film are engaged in it because it’s right in their backyard.

Mark, is it true there were access issues on the site?

Mark: Yes. We went from one bay to another looking for the perfect location. We finally honed down this one spot, which was spectacular, but there was no road into it and no possibility of a road, so the only way to bring anything to it was to take a boat, which we built a platform on and then we could move our wood and our materials round and build, physically, on the beach itself. No workshops or anything like that. It’s hand tools and these are the sort of things that I think are great. There are no wood yards as such. If you want wood, you go to a man that cuts down a tree, sadly, but nevertheless, that’s how they do it. They go up into the woods, cut down the trees and then bring back the wood. All the wood was very fresh and very new and very twisted. All our ideas about making this very sharp looking house disappeared and it became very Jamaican, very quickly, just by the nature of the people building it, the way we had to build it and the materials. It was a Jamaican built house.

We didn’t have much UK construction at all, we just had two people and a team of about 30 locals who were not film people. They are local joiners and carpenters and local house painters so this flavour of being handmade in Jamaica wasn’t very difficult to achieve because we had all the right people doing it.

We saw some wonderful works of art and lovely nautical maps. Could you tell us about those two things and how that ties in with his character?

Veronique: Well, the nautical maps were quite obvious. It seems that for someone who is travelling the world, travelling a lot and who likes the ocean, it was quite obvious to have maps. These nautical maps were something that you would naturally have around you. Not only because they are useful, but also because they’re very beautiful. They are beautiful artworks if you want to look at them precisely. Daniel Craig asked for some contemporary photos from artists. We looked for different kinds of prints and we had a chance to work with a Canadian photographer who agreed to use some of his work.

Did Daniel Craig have any input on any other aspects of the design of the home?

Mark: Daniel was fantastically supportive of all of our work and anything that was really pertinent to him like, for instance, that house. We obviously pitched that to him and carefully involved him in the process. As an actor, if you’re going to go and profess that this has been your house for the last 10 years and the first day you ever saw it is the first day of filming, it’s not a great thing in terms of feeling that you’re involved in the process. Daniel had some great comments, he’s a super supportive actor and we got in to tune quite quickly and understood where he was coming from.

Veronique: It’s really important though for Daniel to be involved. It’s the first time where we see a house in which Bond lives outside London. Until now we see places where, in general, he’s passing through and this one is his world. So it was extremely important for Daniel Craig’s character to keep an eye on everything that was in the house and to give his input and what it should look like.

What would fans be surprised to hear went into the production of the house that they might not have seen or heard of before?

Neal: Well, there was a challenging swimming pool in the middle of that set, which was this little sort of tide pool at the bottom of a waterfall that we always sort of wanted to be full but that was very, very difficult to fill up because the wall that was containing it was built 30 years ago and was leaking all over the place. We were doing everything we possibly could to try and plug the holes in this wall so that there would actually be some water in there for those nights scenes. But we finally managed to do it. I think it basically filled up, we shot it and it drained out again the next day so got very lucky with that. I mean, there was lots of stuff in that house. You know, there was so much created, like on all film sets really. So you’ve got to get everything ready. A set like that was pretty much a 360 degree set. You have limited information on what the DP is going to film and in which way they will want to set up the cameras. So there’s lots of the house that you didn’t see especially in the reverse of the exteriors, behind the house looking out to the sea, Bond’s workshop, all of that stuff. There’s lots of kinds of landscaping done. But I think in the end it it works well because we got the feeling of the place that we designed across, which is in the end that is our job is to create this environment in which the characters can tell their story and if the audience get the idea and you get the flavour of that world they live in then you’ve got get the message of what we were trying to do in terms of design. Then it feels like we have been successful and I think in this case, with Bond’s Jamaican Home, everyone could see what we wanted and it looked great on screen.

Maryam d’Abo On The Living Daylights

For Maryam d’Abo, the path to a Bond role involved three potential 007 lead actors, a part-made German art house film and a chance meeting with Barbara Broccoli in a health club. As part of our 60th anniversary celebrations we spoke to Maryam about her casting, being part of the 007 world and, of course, riding that cello case


How did you first become involved with James Bond?
I was completely shocked when I was put up for a part. It was with Roger Moore on A View To A Kill and I didn’t see myself fitting the bill but John Glen, the director, saw something in me that day. Then before The Living Daylights came round, Cubby Broccoli was casting for the new James Bond actor and they were looking for somebody to run the lines. It was at Pinewood Studios and I did this one scene with Cubby, John Glen and the whole crew there. I then went to Germany to film a Nabokov novel but after a month, the film funding collapsed. The director had 20 minutes of footage and went to United Artists to discuss financing. They saw me in the footage and recommended me to the Broccoli family. I’d grown up and had my hair cut in a bob so I looked quite different to my previous Bond screen tests. Then I bumped into Barbara Broccoli in a health club. I was drying my hair upside down and she just did a double take and said ‘Oh my God, Maryam! You’ve changed. You look so different!’ So between Barbara’s opinion, the United Artists office and John Glen wanting to see me again, it all sort of tied together. I went for a meeting at Pinewood and next thing I knew, I got the part of Kara. I nearly fell over because I was absolutely stunned.

Is it true that you were almost run over the day the role was confirmed?
My agent called me and just said, ‘Guess what, you’ve got the part!’ I was crossing the street in a daze going to a singing lesson near Edgware Road in London. Suddenly this car was braking and honking at me… It wasn’t serious though as the car wasn’t speeding.

How was it when Timothy Dalton replaced Pierce Brosnan in the film?
It happened so fast. I was aware Pierce was going to be the next Bond, but by the time I was cast he was unavailable because of his contract in America. Then they approached Timothy. I remember Barbara organised dinner at this restaurant called Zen in Sloane Avenue. When I arrived they were already sitting at this little round table; Michael G. Wilson was there and Timothy, who was looking very dapper. So that’s the first time I met him. Timothy had this extraordinary presence: very handsome and that incredible operatic, deep voice. It was wonderful. All the tension disappeared. Michael and Barbara have an immense talent at making people feel relaxed and are great at connecting people.

How did your life change once you joined The Living Daylights cast?
It was just a whirlwind. I went from nobody knowing who I was, to paparazzi in front of my house. So that was all a bit new to me and I did feel a bit like a deer in the headlights. But at the same time, there was so much joy in preparing this film and it was like being welcomed into a family. It was a family for a whole year together because I had to prepare beforehand and I had to learn how to mime the pieces of music that I played on the cello. Then I also had to take horseback riding lessons. It was so exciting. I was learning – which is always wonderful as an actor – and the Broccoli family made sure that I was ready and I had the best treatment.

How was your time filming in Vienna?
We had a big press conference in Vienna to begin with. It is a beautiful city. We did two weeks of filming and then I got to work with composer John Barry. John was conducting and I was actually playing – they soaked the bow with dry soap so that the sound couldn’t be heard. I had to learn just the movements of the pieces that they were going to shoot on film, but I really felt carried and supported by the incredible orchestra. One minute I was on a small film in Germany, then working with John Barry and the orchestra
 and the next thing I knew I was on a cello case with James Bond going down a mountain.

How was filming the cello case scenes? It doesn’t look the most comfortable thing to film.
It wasn’t but it looks so effective on screen. I had two wonderful stunt doubles too thankfully, but I still did a lot of the scenes with Timothy where we were sliding down the mountain. I had to make sure the cello case was going straight down the mountain and not curving to the left or right. Timothy was heavier than I was so it moved towards his side more. I had two little bars to hold on to make sure that we were going straight. We often ended up at the bottom of the hill on the case spinning around. They also put tiny little explosive charges underneath the snow so it would look like we were under fire. They are harmless but I hate anything that’s going to make a loud abrupt noise, so we used all my real reactions in the film!

Tell us about the Royal visit to the Pinewood set.
We had so much fun at Pinewood and Princess Diana and Prince Charles were charming. We were in the room with all the props and there was a prop champagne bottle which was made out of sugar glass. Princess Diana was clever and funny, she took the bottle and just smashed it on Prince Charles. There’s always a lot of laughter on a Bond production.

What sets a Bond film apart and makes it fun?
The fun really has to do with the Broccoli family and the people they hire. They are extremely nice people, which you don’t necessarily have all the time. Cubby always knew how to have fun and make everyone happy – whether that was camel racing in the desert or getting the best pasta and sauces imported for the whole crew to feast on. He was wonderful at keeping our spirits up. Michael and Barbara have continued to captain the ship in the same way and know how to run such a big production like 007. It’s a Bond family. You see it on the screen at the end of the day.

In Conversation With Director John Glen, Part 1

John Glen holds the record for directing the most 007 films – five – as well as working on three 007 films as editor and second unit director.  In an exclusive two part chat with 007.com, John shares his story.

How did you start in the film industry?

I started as a messenger at Shepperton Studios. From there, I progressed to working in carpentry but I had this fascination with the editing rooms. I was always intrigued by the smell of them, from all of the amyl acetate they used. It smelt like pear drops, my favourite sweets. So you can say that was the main reason why I got into the editing department.

You worked on post-war films like The Wooden Horse initially?

Yes, I was the second assistant editor; the editor was John Seaborne with his son Peter Seaborne. I was in very distinguished company: Humphrey Fisher, the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was the other assistant and Lord Brabourne (later to be nominated for an Academy Award as a producer on Romeo and Juliet and A Passage to India) came on as an apprentice and I showed him the ropes in the editing rooms. After The Wooden Horse I left Shepperton and went to Walton Studios. I spent some time on the film The Long Dark Hall and halfway through I was called up for the Air Force. When I came back, two years later, I got a job as an assistant editor and was then promoted to assembly editor. I worked on TV episodes like Man in a Suitcase and, most importantly, a series called Danger Man with Patrick McGoohan who, incidentally, would have made a wonderful Bond. A great actor. Very smart and an extremely nice man. The show really gave me the opportunity to move into doing secondary directing. I was given the opportunity by producers Sydney Cole and Aida Young and eventually I directed a whole episode. It was not terribly successful but it was a start.

How did your relationship with 007 first come about? 

In my early days at Shepperton, I worked with a young assistant called Peter Hunt. Peter had gone on to do great things with the Bond films and was to be very instrumental in my career. He was a fantastic editor and eventually became a very good director. He worked with me, in those days, on the editing side before we both went off in different directions. I was working at Twickenham Studios on Peter Collinson’s The Italian Job when the phone rang and it was Peter calling from Pinewood asking if I would go over and see him.  When I headed over, Peter shared details of the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service bobsled sequence and said “How would you like to direct this?” I took 10 minutes to read the sequence – it was a very good action scene. Peter had run behind schedule in Switzerland because, as usual, as soon as a film crew arrives, the snow stops and the sun shines. The bob run was melting away so he needed someone to go in and shoot it quickly before it all disappeared. I jumped at the chance and within a couple of days I was on my way to Switzerland! It was the most important film I’d worked on at that time. A fantastic crew and fantastic facilities. I worked mainly with the expert skiers. I think I was the only one who didn’t ski. 

What happened next?

I pursued my career as second unit director of action sequences and also editor. I was quite selective: I would only take an editing job if there was some directing attached to it and that worked pretty well. As a schoolboy during the Second World War, life was all action, so I kind of had this spirit for adventure. The imagination was there and I applied it to my work. I worked with Euan Lloyd and did a very good film in Africa called The Wild Geese. That’s where I first met Roger Moore. I then did a film with Michael Klinger called Gold, again with Roger, who turned to me and said “Are you in my contract or am I in yours?” which was typical of his sense of humour. Roger was a very nice man, very considerate – perfect with his delivery and a very, very good actor. 

Tell us how you came to direct the iconic The Spy Who Loved Me opening.

I was working in Paris for Lewis Gilbert and Cubby Broccoli offered him the job of directing The Spy Who Loved Me. (At this point Cubby had taken over the entire series and Harry Saltzman was no longer involved.) When Lewis came back from their lunch he said “Oh, Cubby remembers you from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. You did some of the best action stuff in the movie and he wants you involved in this new film”. I had to explain to Lewis that they weren’t going to be shooting for another three months so they’d have to find me something to do in the meantime – I couldn’t afford to sit around and wait for the film to start production! They thought about it and sent me out to direct the opening skiing and parachute sequence. It was really my stepping stone into mainstream direction. Rick Sylvester was the stunt man and it was in the most hazardous location you’ve ever imagined. Mount Asgard sits inside the Arctic Circle on Canada’s Baffin Island and the weather was atrocious. It came straight from the North Pole. We only got one opportunity to film and we took it. Rick was signed up to do two jumps, but the weather deteriorated: we lost half of our equipment up on the mountain and it became impossible to do a second take, so thank goodness the first time worked and Rick was safe.  One thing I hadn’t considered were the skis and what would happen as they fell. They actually went down a lot slower than Rick and almost caught up with his parachute. If you look at that scene closely, you’ll see that the ski actually hit the parachute canopy. It could have had disastrous effects, of course, but fortunately it slid off and he managed to land safely. It is a remarkable, remarkable stunt: a great tribute to everyone involved and it also proved to be a great stepping stone for me.

Is it right you did the parachute sequence in Moonraker as well?

Absolutely. I used the American Olympic Parachute Team and we went to a remote area in Northern California in the Napa Valley. We went with freefall skydivers who weren’t used to making films!  When they first arrived they thought it was a bit of a holiday and I had to give them a stern talking to about the world of filmmaking where you wake up with the light and you work all day until the sun goes down. The cameraman, Randy, had a camera mounted on the top of his helmet. Randy was so good. He was an ex-fighter pilot in the US Air Force who had nerves of steel. He was also a very clever parachutist.   We had about three weeks in Napa and I edited the footage myself as we went along. Every day, I showed the boys how their work fitted into the sequence.  

Tell us about For Your Eyes Only.

There had been quite a long period after Moonraker.  Back at Pinewood, Cubby called all the key technicians and Derek Meddings from the special effects crew turned round and asked “Oh, who’s gonna direct the next Bond then?” and Cubby was quite evasive. A week later, Cubby said he had something he wanted to discuss. “How would you like to direct the next James Bond film?” Well you can imagine how I felt – my legs went wobbly. They were like jelly. Cubby said “Well if you need time to think about it
” I said “No. No, I don’t need any time to think” and said yes on the spot. 

Cubby and Michael didn’t think Roger would continue in the role and we were looking for a new Bond. I spent the next six months screen testing all kinds of people for the role and in the end, fortunately for me, Roger signed on to do it. I wrote the opening sequence of For Your Eyes Only thinking we were going to introduce a new actor. That’s why we had the scene with Tracy’s tombstone in the church graveyard – to remind people of his history. We were going to reveal the new James Bond at this point, but the scene was so good that we decided to keep it in. It worked very well for us at Beckton Gasworks and we created a memorable opening sequence for the film which set the gritty tone we wanted.

Read more in the second part of our interview with John Glen

Documenting The Sound of 007

Like many James Bond fans, filmmaker Mat Whitecross’s trip to see No Time To Die at the cinema was memorable. “I saw it on the day it came out, and was blown away by its amazing ending. I knew I needed to see it again, so I went the next day with my family.”

Yet while his family was enthralled by the action and adventure, losing themselves in the drama and the tragedy, Whitecross was concentrating on his ears as much as his eyes. “I needed to go back to really appreciate the music of the film,” he says.

At that point Whitecross was hard at work on his latest documentary, The Sound of 007. He had been crafting his film for some time, sifting through hours of archive material, shooting new interviews with key contributors from across the years, while figuring out the best way to capture the story within the constraints of a 90-minute running time.

“You’d need a 10-part television series to go into every song and every score in detail,” says Whitecross, “but when we were watching No Time To Die, which worked as such a beautiful final curtain, we realised we could use that as the spine of our film. We had such wonderful access to Hans Zimmer, Johnny Marr and Daniel Craig, as well as Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell. From here we could jump into the past.”

It was when watching No Time To Die for the second time that Whitecross was struck by one of Hans Zimmer’s innovations. “You could hear this unique siren voice; Hans had incorporated the title song into the soundtrack, and had specifically incorporated the singer into the soundtrack. No one had done anything like that with the song before. I thought that was a wonderful use of the song.”

The James Bond theme songs form a huge part of Bond’s musical make up, and Whitecross explores the most iconic of them in The Sound of 007. “007 composer David Arnold says that the Bond songs are like a genre in themselves,” he says, “It’s a genre wide enough to encompass everything from lounge and swing, all the way to New Wave and even a punk aesthetic with Jack White.”

“The Bond films have a who’s who of so many of the best pop musicians in music history, from Shirley Bassey and Matt Monro in the early days, through to Billie Eilish now. No film series will ever be able to emulate that.”

Whitecross’s film collects a intriguing set of interviews from James Bond singers and songwriters and it’s through their stories that some of The Sound of 007’s most memorable anecdotes appear. There are amusing moments, such as as when Duran Duran and John Barry share secrets of their sometimes rocky relationship on A View To A Kill; moments of candour, with Nancy Sinatra recalling how stepping into the studio to record ‘You Only Live Twice’ was one of the most intimidating moments of her life; and also moments of poignancy, most notably with Barbara Broccoli sharing her memory of a meeting with Amy Winehouse about a potential collaboration.

Perhaps the most thrilling anecdote, however, comes from Michael Caine who recalls how he had moved out of his digs with Terence Stamp to escape the perennial partying. He wound up sleeping on John Barry’s couch and one night he was awoken by his host singing at the piano. The composer had just written the title song to Goldfinger and Caine was the first person to hear it. “It is wonderful to hear Michael talk about being the first person to hear that song,” smiles Whitecross. “It allows you to really step into the Swinging Sixties. John Barry was one of the most iconic figures in the Swinging Sixties. He was right there; he was married to Jane Birkin, and was mates with everyone, from The Beatles to Michael Caine and Terence Stamp, and there is something lovely about the snapshot of the ecosystem of the time of the first Bond films. It’s no coincidence that they emerged then; it was such a creatively fertile moment.”

Whitecross says that talking about James Bond songs is like talking about the National Anthem or a folk song. “It feels like it could never have been written; it’s just always been there. Like a nursery rhyme, it has always been in our minds – that’s how I think of the Bond songs,” he explains.

“Each song is of its time but also must reflect Bond. There is this fusion of different elements that make it timeless. The songs and the scores are a snapshot of a moment in time and that is not true of any other film series in history.”

For all the focus on the songs, Whitecross is even more fascinated by the majestic scores, which form the backbone of his film. “I love all the songs but what really appeals to me is the classical side of things and the soundtracks, the history of John Barry going all the way to Hans Zimmer,” he says. “That seemed an area that hadn’t been covered that well on film. And, in a nerdy way, I’m obsessed with what that process is like, so to have Tom Newman, Hans Zimmer or David Arnold break down and anatomise what they do was amazing.

“If we had a longer running time I’d have liked to have done a whole section on David Arnold and Casino Royale in particular. I love the music for Casino Royale and David was such an excellent contributor to our film. It was very hard not to make the film a documentary entirely about John Barry,” laughs Whitecross. “He was such a genius and I am such a fan. I love On Her Majesty’s Secret Service with ‘We Have All the Time In The World’. That score is almost like a test case of why the music is so important to Bond.

“If you’re changing the face of Bond, as they did after Sean Connery left, it’s the music that helps give the film so much of its identity,” he says. “Connery might have gone but the music told the audience they’re still in safe hands; this is still the same man. Barry had to fight doubly hard on that film and that’s why many people say it’s the greatest Bond score.  

Monty Norman’s ‘James Bond Theme’ is, of course, another vital component of The Sound of 007, and it features early in the film. “Again, it would have been so easy to focus so much time on that story,” Whitecross says. It is, after all, the ‘James Bond Theme’ that provides the audience with such an important anchor, launching them immediately into the hero’s world.

“We dug into the archives and tapped up Monty and his wife, Rina, and it was great to show some of the programmes from his early musicals. Sadly, Monty passed very recently but we were able to talk to him and to conduct the last interview he ever did. That was such a rewarding part of such a brilliant project. Being able to make a film about my favourite film music has been a truly wonderful experience.”

Mat Whitecross has directed films and music videos for artists including Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Take That and Jay-Z. He won widespread acclaim for his Ian Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, as well as the music documentaries Oasis: Supersonic and Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams. He also directed the four-part drama Fleming about the life of the James Bond author

Watch The Sound of 007 here.

In conversation with Director John Glen, Part 2

In part two of our interview with filmmaker John Glen, we hear more on how he directed a record five 007 films, with four different James Bonds, across three decades including two jumps from the Eiffel Tower and how he even ‘burned down’ City Hall. 

How did you prepare to direct 007?

It was a surprise to everyone in the business when I was appointed director. Lewis Gilbert said, “Well Johnny, if you arrive on the floor on a Monday morning and you don’t know what you’re doing, get the actors on and before they ask you a question just shout out “Action!” and actors being actors will always do something”! 

How was it working with Roger?

We gave Roger’s 007 a harder edge but we kept the humour and the light touch that Roger was famous for and used his assets to our advantage. When we did the second film Octopussy, we went further. I remember his famous eyebrows rising after telling him what we were going to do. ‘We are going to dress you up in a gorilla outfit’. His eyebrows really went up. Then when I said ‘you have to put on a clown’s outfit’. Higher again. He really couldn’t believe what I was doing.  However, it worked really well and the circus was a great background to act against. We had such fun shooting it.

There are other great moments in Octopussy. The TukTuk chase is a very different chase.

Yes, it’s the converse humour. On Octopussy, we were fortunate that Vijay Amritraj, a world tennis star, knew Cubby. Michael and I incorporated him into the script. When we came to shoot the scenes with Vijay it became part of the chase sequence and he batted the villains off with his tennis racquet. If you look closely even the chap who was controlling the traffic was in an umpire’s chair, looking left and right.  

Next you worked on Roger’s last outing as 007

With A View To A Kill we had a wonderful location in San Francisco. The mayor, Mayor Feinstein, gave us wonderful cooperation. We told her the outline that we wanted to set alight to City Hall and she didn’t raise an eyelid. She asked how much money we were going to spend and when we said about $5 million she explained ‘you can do what you like, you can burn down City Hall if you want’. Fortunately she had great faith in their fire chief whom we worked closely with. 

There is also an iconic start to A View To A Kill as well at the Eiffel Tower.

Yes, the jump from the Eiffel Tower. BJ Worth did a great job with that stunt. There was lots of planning behind a stunt like that. I remember I went on the stage of Pinewood one day and there was this diving board that BJ Worth erected on this stage. I went on and I asked ‘What’s that diving board for?’ BJ said ‘Oh, I’m going to put that on top of the Eiffel Tower.’ I said, no you’re not. He explained then that he’d have to be able to jump far enough to clear the Tower. The shape of the tower means that you have to clear about 20 feet of superstructure before you can go into freefall. We were very careful and we had a lot of trouble getting permission to do it. So I said, ‘Well, you can’t have the diving board that long. It’s gonna have to be shortened’ His safety is paramount but at the same time you don’t want to disfigure the Eiffel Tower, with a big diving board sitting out the side which might’ve been seen on camera. The scene looked great on camera though and everyone was safe. 

You then had to search again for a new Bond?

We all loved Roger but it was pretty obvious to all concerned, including Roger, that we were going to have to replace him. We knew A View To A Kill would be his last movie. There’s no secret about it as there’s a limit and we knew more casting was round the corner. 

You went from Roger to Pierce only to then find Timothy


I tested Pierce Brosnan for the role. Pierce had been involved in a series in America, which was very successful, called Remington Steele.  He’s a lovely man, we’d met him before when we were filming For Your Eyes Only in Corfu because he was married to one of the actresses, Cassie Harris. Pierce was a very popular choice for us and we loved the tests he did. Then suddenly, the TV company heard that he was going to be James Bond but they had a clause in the contract which prevented him from doing both. That’s when we chose Timothy Dalton. We had talked about Timothy previously as he’d been a fantastic, successful Shakespearean actor. His big hit was Lion in Winter which was huge. I think that he had been approached shortly after that to play Bond but turned it down, however when we went back to him he was more amenable and we set to work quickly. 

So when it came to The Living Daylights I believe you came up with the Cello case and asked Cubby to sit in the case and test it. Is that true?

While we were writing the script in Hollywood, we were in the MGM Studios in Culver City, and we came up with this idea. I pitched the idea to Cubby, who said ‘Oh, it’s not possible’. So I rang the music stage at MGM and sure enough, there was an orchestra there and they had several cellos there. So we all trooped over to the music stage. They stopped what they were doing while we sat in the case. I sat in one side of the cello case, and Cubby sat in the other side. I proved that it was possible to do and Cubby bought into the idea and it worked very well.

There are obviously some iconic cars in your time on the Bond films – from the Citroen 2CV through to the Aston Martin V8 – and some iconic moments. What prompted Aston Martin to return in The Living Daylights?

Well, we always had a hankering to bring Aston Martin back as it is James Bond’s car. We did the opposite for a while with Roger. We got a Citroen 2CV for humour and that worked very well. You can go across ploughed fields and all sorts in it and it’s got very good suspension. We varied it after that and went to Lotus. For Timothy’s time as James Bond, we felt that Aston Martin was appropriate. We used it in a more modern way than Goldfinger as the car had gadgets, bulletproof glass and number plates revolving.

You used a lot of animals in your films. What was the inspiration behind that?

Well, I’m an animal lover. When I was working on the TV series Danger Man every time there was an animal involved the director knew it would take time, so it was always left to the second unit director, in that case it was me. I found very early on that you have to be quite ingenious and take time and care and you have to have a plan about what you need on film. I remember on Danger Man there was a scene where a parcel is delivered. This guy starts to unwrap a parcel bomb. The string on the parcel is dangling down and suddenly a cat plays with it and pulls the parcel bomb off the table. It was all filmed and producer Sidney Cohen said to me, ‘That’s all well and good but we can’t have a cat looking like it is being blown up! You’ve got to show the cat escaping.’ So I went back the next day and we brought the cat back in. The cat jumped through the window where its handler was waiting outside to catch it.  Perfect, I thought. Then when I came to look at the rushes, I saw the cat had come out the window the wrong way around and had turned in mid-flight. So that taught me a lesson in how to deal with animals.  Do it quickly and check it over. They only do one take. They’re not going to do take two, three, four and so on. You have to be ready and have everything in place. In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service we had a dog and George Lazenby had to interact with it and get his lines in. The sunlight was fading. George did it perfectly and it worked well.  Alfred Hitchcock always used to do a personal appearance on his films. I always used to use my little signature which was a pigeon. When someone asks me why I used a pigeon I always said ‘well they are available anywhere in the world and they’re cheap. They all look alike!’ 

Do you have a favourite location from your years filming 007?

There are so many great locations, Chantilly in France was one of my favourites. The horse racing scenes we captured in France. We had some good times filming there and in the forests. That was nice. San Francisco is another great location. We had wonderful cooperation and we filmed on the wonderful Golden Gate Bridge. I mean, not many people realise it but there is an elevator that goes up on the main supports and the bridge on one end. That’s where the painters go up. You know, it just takes two people and a can of paint. It’s not much wider. It never occurred to me then of course the painters have to get up there somehow. So then we took a couple of stuntmen up and then we did a bit of a sequence for real on the bridge. I mean, the tube looks about six inches wide when you see it in the ground, but in fact it’s six feet in diameter. We did some very daring work and then we did the rest in the studio. It was a very clever sequence as to how we pieced it together between all the different teams – miniatures, sets, stunts and so on. It is great as the climax of Roger’s time as 007. 

For Licence to Kill you filmed the majority away from Pinewood. How was that?

Pinewood is the ancestral home of the James Bond series. We had a lot of pressure from the studio to reduce costs. We were still pretty competitive, especially when you compare what they spend today, the budget was big, around $32 million which was a huge amount of money. So the only way we could make the same quality film was to go to Mexico. We went to Churubusco Studios in Mexico City. The studio was in complete disrepair when we got there. In fact, when the first explosions went off for a scene, we saw half the roof panels came down like autumn leaves. Peter Lamont did a fantastic job on patching up the place and it turned out a successful shoot. The Mexican film industry have very good crews as well as great construction people who work very hard. On top of that, they have great locations and we found great local actors too.

Obviously, the tanker chase in Licence To Kill stands out as being unique – even for 007 – So how was that to piece together?

It’s all action, largely second unit and lasts for about 20 minutes.  We filmed with the actors, the close shots and so forth, and with Arthur Wooster, my second unit director.  They shot amazingly dangerous stuff with about 12 tankers. Fortunately the company that made the tankers had a factory just inside the Mexican border from the US and they did a wonderful job for us patching all these tankers up from Kenworth Trucks. At the end of filming, I think there was only one that was still running! The rest had all been wrecked in one way or another. I used stunt drivers like Remy Julienne, he and his team did incredible stunts with the trucks. They had to engineer them for certain shots, sometimes put weights on them to prepare them. The best stunt I think I’ve ever done was the one where they brought a guy in from Paris who specialised in doing a 10-wheel wheelie with a tanker. It takes a bit of doing and we didn’t really think it would be possible but this guy arrived and performed the stunt on take one. Unbelievable. Not only did he do the wheelie but he landed it perfectly and crashed the truck on top of one of the other vehicles. It was just the perfect stunt. 

Timothy’s films are closer to the source material in the books. Is that what you were aiming for?

Absolutely. I mean, that was a conscious decision from the producers and myself. We would make use of Timothy’s abilities as a very good actor.  We made License To Kill  a very hard edged film dealing with the drug trade. It’s a very hard business and to soften it to make it more acceptable in order to get the right certificate would have been quite wrong. We took a chance and we paid a little bit at the box office but I think subsequently people feel it’s one of the better Bond films. I honestly feel it is my best film. 

James Bond’s London

If you’re visiting London and want to take in a spot of 007 sightseeing, listed below you’ll find an overview of James Bond’s London, featuring some of the unique and iconic 007 locations.

While GoldenEye in Jamaica is author Ian Fleming’s most famous home, his flat at 22B Ebury Street in Belgravia played a prominent role in his younger years. The building had formerly served as the Pimlico Literary Institution. The front is now adorned with a blue plaque commemorating his time there.

Another of Fleming’s residences was 16 Victoria Square, his London home from 1953. Nestled between Buckingham Palace and Victoria Station, the property was designed by early-Victorian architect Sir Matthew Wyatt.

DUKES bar in Mayfair was one of Fleming’s favourite spots and is sometimes linked with 007’s famous martini. Another of his haunts, Boodle’s Club in St James’s Street, is said to have been part of the inspiration for Blades Club, which appears prominently in the 1955 novel Moonraker.

One of the many nods to Bond history in Die Another Day (2002) is the appropriation of the name Blades for the fencing club where Bond duels with Gustav Graves. Sited at The Reform Club, a private members club in Pall Mall, it is here that Madonna makes her cameo appearance. The Reform Club was also used in Quantum Of Solace (2008), doubling as the Foreign Office for the scene where M meets the Foreign Secretary.

Die Another Day also showcases the exterior of Buckingham Palace, and its surroundings, as Gustav Graves parachutes in to receive his knighthood from the Queen.

Parts of London doubled as St. Petersburg in 1995’s GoldenEye, with The Langham in Portland Place featuring as Bond’s luxury Russian hotel and Drapers Hall on Throgmorton Ave as the Russian Council Chamber.

GoldenEye also used London’s much-loved St. Pancras Station, re-casting it as St. Petersburg Station for the scene where Natalya arrives by train and bids to elude authorities. The wonderful interior of the St. Sophia Cathedral, Moscow Road, meanwhile, doubled for the St. Petersburg church where Natalya meets Boris Grishenko.

Somerset House on the Strand also featured as St. Petersburg in GoldenEye with the production importing 40 Russian cars to drive around the courtyard for the scene where Bond and CIA operative Jack Wade break down in their rusty, blue car. Somerset House also enjoyed a role in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies as Bond pulls up for a meeting with M in his iconic Aston Martin DB5.

The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square featured in 2012’s Skyfall, hosting the first meeting between Bond and his new Q. They meet in Room 34 where a melancholy Bond is gazing at The Fighting Temeraire by J.M.W. Turner. Turner’s famous oil painting depicts one of the final great warships from 1805’s Battle of Trafalgar being towed away for scrap, mirroring Bond’s potential future following the closure of the double-O programme.

Skyfall (2012) also filmed at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, which was used for the scene where M attends the funerals of the MI6 agents killed in the terrorist attack.

Also featuring in 2012’s Skyfall was the Department of Energy and Climate Change in Whitehall, where the production shot on the rooftop, capturing the scene in which Moneypenny gives Bond the ceramic bulldog that M bequeathed to him in her will.

The River Thames played a prominent role in 1999’s The World Is Not Enough, which saw the centre of London debut as a major action location for 007, with Bond pursing Cigar Girl along the river, zipping past the Houses of Parliament, through Tower Bridge to Docklands and the O2 Arena (or the Millennium Dome as it was known at the time). Bond’s mid-air barrel roll in the Q Jet Boat, meanwhile, was filmed at Millwall Docks.

Formerly the home of the Greater London Assembly and the Mayor of London, City Hall in Southwark appeared in 2015’s Spectre as the home of the Centre for National Security. Also featuring in the film was Freemasons’ Hall on Great Queen Street, where the production shot the scene at the Foreign Office where C is anointed as the Head of Nine Eyes.

Further up the Thames from City Hall at Vauxhall is the SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) building, Vauxhall Cross, which has played the home of Bond’s MI6 in a number of films since debuting in 1995’s GoldenEye. On screen it has come under attack in The World Is Not Enough, Skyfall, and Spectre. Vauxhall Cross also appeared as an establishing shot in Die Another Day, the writers going on to acknowledge the building’s real-life name with scenes set below MI6 in the fictional Vauxhall Cross tube station.

The moment in Die Another Day when Bond enters Vauxhall Cross underground station ahead of his meeting M was filmed at the end of Westminster Bridge. The famous bridge also featured in the climax to Spectre as Bond battles Blofeld.

The real-life London Underground enjoyed a starring role in Skyfall when the villain Silva escapes MI6. While much of the action was shot at Pinewood Studios, filmmakers captured vital scenes on a disused Jubilee Line platform at Charing Cross Station, although on screen the chase sequence unfolds between Temple and Embankment stations. 

The Ministry of Defence Main Building in Whitehall took on the role of the MI6 offices for 2021’s No Time To Die. The building had previously played itself in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only.

Also in Whitehall is the Old War Office Building, which featured as MI6 in 1983’s Octopussy, and Carlton House Terrace, which was the exterior for Madeleine Swann’s office in No Time To Die (2021).

Malaysia House, just off Trafalgar Square on Cockspur Street, appeared in 1987’s The Living Daylights as Universal Exports, the front for MI6.

Almost opposite is 35 Spring Gardens, which acted as the exterior of the safe house where M, Q and Moneypenny meet in Spectre (2015).

Said to be one of the oldest restaurants in London, Rules in Covent Garden also featured in Spectre, hosting M, Q and Moneypenny. Diners making a reservation can request ‘M’s table’ for their sitting.

 

The Montegrappa 007 Spymaster Duo Pens

They may not explode
 but they do conceal secrets. Luxury writing instrument maker Montegrappa creates a pair of collectors’ pens in honour of 007. The 007 Spymaster Duo is a fitting companion for any assignment. A fountain pen and roller ball with hidden design elements, handmade from precious materials in a numbered edition of just 380 pieces.

Montegrappa has been making the world’s finest writing instruments since 1912. Known for combining luxurious materials, high craftsmanship and individual flair, the company has been working in the same artisanal factory in Bassano del Grappa, Italy for more than a century.

At the start of the project, Montegrappa’s designers spent time reviewing props and design motifs from 007’s six decades on screen. The result is a pair of pens drawing on the best traditions of James Bond gadgetry and style. Each pen is fitted with a secret mechanism concealing a pair of polished metal 007 cufflinks. The Spymaster fountain pen carries its ink inside brass bullets engraved with 007, and comes with two pots of 007 ink and Montegrappa’s Swift-Shot ink filling system. This Q-style innovative reloading device uses hydraulic action to refill the cartridges swiftly and cleanly.

Rifling on the high-strength machined steel cap and upper barrel echoes the iconic gun-barrel, while the lower barrel is made of blackened alloy with a knurled, pistol-grip finish. The fountain pen features a 18K gold 8mm nib with custom-engraving. Each pen is numbered and housed in a custom-made travel case with secret compartments, accessories and a Bond family crest embossed journal. Discover the 007 Spymaster Duo to pre-order now at 007Store.com.

Michael Reed (1929 – 2022)

Michael Reed, Director of Photography for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service has sadly passed away.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service has become one of the most loved of the series with fans and critics alike and in large part due to the way Michael Reed captured its unique moments. Michael’s work included The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Saint, The New Avengers, Philip Marlowe – Private Eye and The Press Gang. Our thoughts are with his family at this time.