Focus Of The Week: Octopussy

Posted by

Octopussy, the 13THfilm in the official EON James Bond series, takes its title from a 1966 Ian Fleming short story collection but the plot is completely original. Regular writers Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson retooled George MacDonald Fraser’s early draft of the script retaining some  of colourful elements including India as a locale, a deadly yo-yo buzzsaw and Bond evading capture by hiding in a gorilla suit.

The final story sees Bond investigate the murder of 009 (Andy Bradford), found dead dressed as a clown and carrying a fake Fabergé egg at the British Ambassador’s residence in East Berlin. At an auction, Bond encourages Afghan prince Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan) accompanied by his henchwoman Magda (Kristina Wayborn), to bid for the fake collectible egg. The trail leads 007 to Khan’s palace in Rajasthan, India, where Bond discovers the corrupt art dealer is in league with Orlov (Steven Berkoff), a maverick Soviet general. The pair are using the circus troupe of Khan’s mistress Octopussy (Maud Adams) to smuggle Soviet art treasures into the West. 007 infiltrates the circus and discovers Orlov has replaced the art with a nuclear warhead, intending to blow up a US Air Force base in West Germany. Bond deactivates the device and leads an assault on Khan’s palace. After a spectacular battle, Khan kidnaps Octopussy and makes his escape by plane, only to be foiled by Bond who detaches the fuel line and sends Khan to a fiery end.

Roger Moore returned for his sixth 007 adventure. Cubby Broccoli cast Maud Adams as the enigmatic Octopussy. Adams previously played Andrea Anders in The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), the first time an actress had returned for a second leading role. French actor Louis Jourdan won the role of the cultured Khan. Writer George MacDonald Fraser suggested Indian film and TV actor Kabir Bedi as Khan’s deadly henchman Gobinda. Barbara Broccoli spotted Steven Berkoff in an LA stage production of Greek and suggested him for power crazed Russian, General Orlov. Davis Cup champion Vijay Amritraj made his film debut as Bond’s contact Vijay, his real life profession providing light relief during a tuk-tuk chase.

The pre-title sequence sees Bond escape in an Acrostar Bede jet hidden in a horse box. Having previously appeared in early drafts of the Moonraker script, the stunt was divided into two sections. For the aerial action J.W. “Corkey” Fornoff piloted his jet over Southern Utah. For close-ups of the heart-stopping moment Bond manoeuvres the jet through a hangar, special effects supervisor John Richardson mounted a plane on a pole attached to a stripped-down Jaguar. The car was driven through the hangar at breakneck speed, soldiers running in front of the car to hide the chassis. To create the effect of the missile following the plane, Richardson constructed a model plane and attached a flaming firework to it.

The first unit started shooting on Aug 10 1982 in West Berlin — Peter Lamont doctored a section of the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall to represent the East Berlin side — and moved to Udaipur in September. The filming of the tuk-tuk chase drew huge crowds. At one moment, a man broke through the security cordon on a bicycle and joined the chase – the moment remains in the film. The district’s Maharana was incredibly welcoming to the team, not only letting the safari scenes be filmed in his garden, but also lending his stuffed tiger for the moment Bond is attacked in the jungle.

The score was once again composed by John Barry. Collaborating with celebrated lyricist Tim Rice, the pair created six songs for consideration. ‘All Time High’ was chosen, a rare 007 song not to feature the title of the movie, performed by US soul singer Rita Coolidge. The film premiered in June 1983.

Focus Of The Week: Ben Whishaw’s Q

Posted by

Played by Ben Whishaw, the Q of Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015) is the first time in a Bond film where the Quartermaster is younger than the secret agent. While this age gap initially creates a tension, this Q retains many of the qualities of his predecessors; his inventive genius, his loyalty to 007 and his ability to help Bond escape from the tightest of corners.

Q first meets Bond at the London’s National Gallery in front of J.M.W. Turner’s 1839 painting The Fighting Temeraire. 007 is taken aback when the young man introduces himself as his new Quartermaster, mocking him for his youthful appearance (“You must be joking… You still have spots”), but the tech wizard holds his own, suggesting he “can do more damage on his laptop in his pyjamas than Bond can do in a year in the field.”

The pair acknowledge their place in the contemporary espionage world and shake hands. Q gives Bond tickets to Shanghai and his new weapon, a biometrically-encoded Walther PPK (matched to Bond’s palm-prints) and a radio transmitter for tracing 007’s whereabouts in the field. When Bond looks underwhelmed by his equipment, Q retorts, “Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don’t really go in for those anymore?”

After Bond has captured cyber criminal Silva (Javier Bardem) and incarcerated him in MI6’s makeshift headquarters, Q connects Silva’s laptop to MI6’s computer network in order to decrypt its information. Silva’s sophisticated hacking prowess sees data from his laptop corrupt MI6’s mainframe, releasing the villain from his cell and on his mission to kill M (Judi Dench).

On a three-dimensional map of London’s subterranean tunnel network, Q tracks Silva with Bond in hot pursuit, tapping into the security cameras in the London Underground to identify Silva in disguise as a policeman. After Bond rescues M from Silva’s attack, Q leaves a cunning electronic trail for Silva to follow as Bond and M head to 007’s childhood home, Skyfall, in Scotland. This line of digital breadcrumbs, works, delivering Silva directly to Skyfall.

Q once again proves invaluable to Bond’s mission in Spectre. Following his suspension, 007 requests Q make him “disappear”. When Q replies that he reports to M and has a mortgage to pay and two cats to feed, Bond says, “Well, then I suggest you trust me, for the sake of your cats.” Q reluctantly makes 007 invisible for 24 hours. The following morning, Q arrives at work to find Bond has stolen the new Aston Martin DB10 car assigned to 009, leaving the Quartermaster a bottle of Bollinger champagne as an apology.

Despite his fear of flying, Q joins Bond in Austria. He comes under threat from Spectre operatives but manages to outwit them and links Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) to Bond’s previous missions, identifying Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene and Silva as belonging to the same organisation confirming the existence of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Later Q teams up with M (Ralph Fiennes) to foil C (Andrew Scott)’s plans to launch the global intelligence initiative Nine Eyes that would provide information to S.P.E.C.T.R.E about counter-terrorist investigations.

Q’s final act of assistance to 007 is to furnish him with a remodelled Aston Martin DB5. But will Bond return in it one piece?

Global James Bond Day

Posted by

Today is official Global James Bond Day, an annual celebration of the 007 franchise held on October 5th. This date marks the release of the first James Bond film Dr. No, in 1962.

To celebrate Global James Bond Day this year, seven of James Bond’s iconic Aston Martins will be in central London. Four of the Aston Martins from the 007 films, the DB10, V8 Vantage, DB5 and DBS will be driving through central London passing major landmarks and James Bond film locations. The DBS from Casino Royale (2006) will be parked outside Bond In Motion at the London Film Museum. For a opportunities to win prizes throughout the day head to our official social media channels.

Forza Horizon 4 Launch

Posted by

To celebrate the launch of Forza Horizon 4, which includes The Best of Bond Car Pack, four classic Bond cars were on display at Goodwood House in the UK. The home to the famous Festival of Speed was the backdrop to two Aston Martin DBS’ from Quantum Of Solace (2008), an Aston Martin DB10 from Spectre (2015) and the iconic Aston Martin DB5 seen on screen in GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Skyfall (2012) and Spectre. All four cars feature in the game.

The Best of Bond Car Pack for Forza Horizon 4 allows players to drive 10 classic Bond cars and is included as part of the Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition. The pack will be playable with early access to the game, beginning on September 28. Players will also be able to purchase the Best of Bond Car Pack separately at the global launch of the game on October 2.

Focus Of The Week: GoldenEye

Posted by

GoldenEye (1995), the seventeenth film in the series, is named after author Ian Fleming’s Jamaican residence.

The plot pits Bond (Pierce Brosnan) against his old MI6 mentor Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean) who, as the film begins, fakes his own death. In cahoots with Russian General Ouromov (John Gottfried) and Mafia Assassin Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), Trevelyan gains control of the GoldenEye weapons system at the Severnaya satellite control centre. His plan is to punish Britain for betraying his Cossack parents who committed suicide. Bond, working alongside Severnaya computer programmer Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), tracks Trevelyan to Cuba and breaks into his facility. Natalya reprograms the GoldenEye and Bond fights Trevelyan in the installation’s giant radio dish, the latter crushed by a falling antenna.

Timothy Dalton had decided not to return as Bond so the search was on for a new 007. Pierce Brosnan had been offered the role when Roger Moore departed but his contract to US TV show Remington Steele had prevented him from slipping on the tux. “The moment Timothy jumped ship, I thought ‘No it won’t happen a second time’,” recalled Brosnan. But it did and the Irish-American actor won the coveted role. Echoing the real life head of MI6 Stella Remington, Dame Judi Dench joined the series as the first female M, a role she made her own for seven films.

With Pinewood Studios booked up, the team needed a new home. Production designer Peter Lamont took over an abandoned Rolls Royce factory and created a new studio space dubbed Leavesden, now one of the leading filmmaking hubs in the world.Production began on January 16 1995 under the direction of Martin Campbell (TV’s Edge Of Darkness), the exact month and day that Dr. No started shooting in Jamaica 33 years before.

Perhaps the most complex set-piece saw 007 drive a tank through the streets of St. Petersburg leaving maximum devastation in his wake. After negotiating with Government bureaucracy, stunts and explosions were staged in the heart of the city by the 2ndUnit and augmented by carnage created with a 42- ton tank (nicknamed Metal Mickey) on a two block stretch of St. Petersburg built at Leavesden.

GoldenEye proved to be immensely popular. The success confirmed the relevance of Bond in a post-cold war world and firmly established Pierce Brosnan as the new 007. But it also saw something else; the passing of the series’ reigns from Cubby Broccoli to new producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. A new era had begun.

Bond Cars In Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition

Posted by

Gamers will be able to drive an iconic car from the James Bond films in The Best of Bond Car Pack as the Day One Car Pack included in Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition. It will be playable with early access to the game beginning on September 28. Players will also be able to purchase the Best of Bond Car Pack separately at the global launch of the game on October 2.

The Best of Bond Car Pack features 10 cars including the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964), the AMC Hornet X from The Man With The Golden Gun (1974) and the Jaguar C-X75 from Spectre (2015).

The full line-up of James Bond Edition cars inspired by the films in the James Bond Car Pack:

• The Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964)

• The Aston Martin DBS from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

• The AMC Hornet X Hatchback from The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

• The Lotus Esprit S1 from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

• The Citroën 2CV6 from For Your Eyes Only (1981)

• The Aston Martin V8 Vantage from The Living Daylights (1987)

• The BMW Z8 from The World Is Not Enough (1999)

• The Aston Martin DBS from Quantum Of Solace (2008)

• The Jaguar C-X75 from Spectre (2015)

• The Aston Martin DB10 from Spectre (2015)

Several of the cars will feature film-inspired gadgets that players will be able to view while in Forzavista mode. For example, the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964) will feature numerous gadgets such as revolving number plates and retractable tyre slashers. In addition, the Lotus Esprit S1 will feature a special body kit option inspired by the “Wet Nellie” submarine vehicle from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).

In addition to the cars, players who own the Best of Bond Car Pack in Forza Horizon 4 will also receive some Bond inspired goodies, including Bond outfits, and exclusive “Quick Chat” phrases.

Focus Of The Week: Kamal Khan

Posted by

Charismatic and captivating, Octopussy’s Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan) is an exiled Afghan prince with a taste for the finer things in life; priceless art, fine wines, expensive jewels. Yet Khan is as corrupt as he is cultured. The suave art dealer and international gem smuggler is in cahoots with the power-crazed Soviet General Orlov (Steven Berkoff) – the two men are plotting to create a ‘nuclear accident’ on a US air base in West Germany.This mishap will encourage NATO to abandon nuclear arms, allowing Orlov’s armies to invade Western Europe while Khan makes a fortune selling priceless masterpieces.

To finance this crazed scheme, the pair generate funds by Orlov stealing Soviet art treasures from the Kremlin Art Depository and replacing them with forgeries designed in the basement workshop of Khan’s Monsoon palace. They use Khan’s mistress Octopussy (Maud Adams)’s travelling circus as a front to smuggle the treasures into the West. Kahn and Orlov betray Octopussy by replacing the treasures with a nuclear warhead.

Bond (Roger Moore) first encounters Khan at an auction where the art collector is clearly desperate to purchase a real Fabergé egg. Bond swaps the real one for a fake, forcing Khan to pay £50,000 for a forgery. 007 tracks Khan back to his palace in India and exposes his cheating at backgammon. Bond is subsequently chased by Khan’s henchman Gobinda (Kabir Bedi) and his hoodlums but evades his pursuers in an auto rickshaw. Gobinda later knocks 007 unconscious and brings him back to Khan’s palace. Bond discovers Khan is working with Orlov and escapes.

As the action switches to Germany, Khan discovers Bond on board Octopussy’s circus train and forces him off. Bond chases the train in a stolen car but Khan is confident Bond will cease to be a problem. Preparing to return to India, unaware that Bond has defused the nuclear bomb (disguised as a clown), Khan starts to pack the smuggled treasures. His departure is thwarted by Octopussy and her gymnast guards who infiltrate his palace. While Octopussy’s guards deal with Khan’s men –  Octopussy confronts Khan but he pulls a gun on her.   Bond and Q (Desmond Llewelyn) arrive to the chaotic battle in a Union Jack hot air balloon. Khan kidnaps Octopussy and escapes first on horseback and then on a light aircraft. Bond gives chase.

Bond jumps onto the outside of the plane and engages Gobinda in hand-to-hand combat as Khan puts the plane through aerobatic manoeuvres. After flicking a metal antenna at Gobinda’s head, causing him to lose his grip, Bond detaches the fuel line sending the plane into a nosedive. 007 and Octopussy leap clear as Khan desperately tries to land the plane on a short runway. Unable to stop the plane falling off a cliff, Khan falls to an expensive death.

 

 

Focus Of The Week: Moonraker

Posted by

Within weeks of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) opening, Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli announced the team would next be tackling Moonraker (1979), an adaptation of Ian Fleming’s third novel. Realising the movie could coincide with the launch of the first NASA space shuttle, Broccoli announced he wanted Moonraker to be “science fact” not science fiction. The idea was simple but enticing: James Bond in outer space.

While Fleming’s novel centred on a nuclear rocket, Christopher Wood’s screenplay sees Bond (Roger Moore) investigate the hijacking of the Space Shuttle Moonraker. The trail leads him to aeronautics mogul Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) who Bond discovers is developing a highly toxic nerve gas. Teaming up with CIA Agent Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles), Bond uncovers Drax’s plan to launch multiple Space Shuttles to fire globes filled with the deadly gas towards Earth so he can repopulate the planet with his own master race of perfect specimens. Bond and Goodhead infiltrate Drax’s space station, alert the US Marines to the space station’s location, and take part in a huge laser battle to decide the fate of the human race.

The cast was an international one: French actor Lonsdale was cast as the cultured, messianic Drax, American actress Lois Chiles won the role of Dr. Holly Goodhead, an astronaut and CIA agent who is undercover in Drax’s organisation. Due to popular demand, Richard Kiel was brought back to reprise his role as the metal-toothed Jaws, who this time round finds love and undergoes a change of allegiances. Sadly, Moonraker would prove to be the last 007 film to feature Bernard Lee as M.

The production moved from Pinewood to Paris, booking every studio in Paris to accommodate the film. The globetrotting location shoot found logistical challenges at every turn. For the pre-credit sequence, Bond is pushed out of a plane without a parachute. It took over 83 jumps over five weeks to complete the aerial action in the skies above California. A high speed boat chase through Venice’s centuries old canals took careful negotiations with the Italian authorities. And in France, weightless sequences on Drax’s space station required days of rigging to allow a dozen performers to float in Zero G.

Hundreds of effects shots were needed depicting space shuttles, the space station and space debris customised for each shot. Visual Effects Supervisor Derek Meddings created all the special effects in camera, shooting one element, winding back the film in camera and then shooting the next element — for one shot of the space battle, a single piece of film might require 48 exposures. To realise the moment of Drax’s space station exploding, the team obtained two shotguns, closed the doors at a stage on Pinewood and blew the model to smithereens. The effects work earned Meddings and his team an Oscar nomination.

John Barry wrote the score and theme song with lyrics by Hal David. Johnny Mathis was the original choice to sing the song yet didn’t click with the song so Barry quickly recruited Shirley Bassey to lend the song her stunning vocals. The film would break office records during the summer of 1979, grossing $210 million.

Focus Of The Week: May Day

Posted by

Stylish and deadly, May Day (Grace Jones) is the bodyguard and lover of millionaire Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) in A View To A Kill (1985). She has an eye for high fashion — we first see her in a striking red suit trying to tame Zorin’s horse, Pegasus — her ensemble is the result of a collaboration between Grace Jones’ friend, Paris designer Azzedine Alaia and costume designer Emma Porteous.

May Day is strong enough to lift a man over her head and is the perfect partner for Zorin: both share a near complete lack of regard for human life coupled with a manic personality. May Day’s main role in Zorin’s life is killing his opponents. She murders French detective Aubergine (Jean Rougerie) with a poisoned barbed butterfly prop. Bond (Roger Moore) gives chase up the Eiffel Tower but she takes a death defying leap from the top and skydives onto a wedding boat. 007 gives chase by car but she manages to evade him.

The pair meet again at Zorin’s chateau where May Day assassinates Bond’s MI6 cohort Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee) while he is taking a Rolls-Royce through a car wash. She later takes part in an attempt to drown Bond in the same car and later kills 007’s CIA contact Chuck Lee (David Yip) in San Francisco.

Yet, when Zorin unleashes his plan to set off a double earthquake, flood Silicon Valley, and monopolise microchip production, May Day is forced to reconsider her allegiances. After she dutifully chases Bond and Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) into a mine, Zorin floods the caverns while she is trapped inside. When May Day realises Zorin has left her to die, she helps Bond disrupt the millionaire’s scheme. Using her upper body strength, she puts the bomb in a cart to send it outside the mine. When the brake suddenly activates, blocking the cart, May Day stays on board to hold the brake open, knowing she will die when the detonator explodes. Bond implores her to save herself but she simply tells him: “Get Zorin for me.”

Zorin escapes in an airship from which he watches her exit the mine on the cart. She throws back one last defiant stare. As Zorin falls to his death following an encounter with Bond on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, her dying request comes true.

Focus Of The Week: From Russia With Love

Posted by

After creating a cinematic smash with Dr. No (1962), producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, along with director Terence Young, were locked into creating a follow up for an October 1963 release date. The filmmakers chose Ian Fleming’s fifth 007 novel ‘From Russia With Love’, believed by aficionados to be among the best books — President John F. Kennedy was a fan. Novelist Len Deighton contributed briefly to the project before Richard Maibaum and Johanna Harwood worked on subsequent drafts. Although producers wanted to remain faithful to such a well loved novel, the screenplay shifted the villainy from Soviet Union’s SMERSH to the non-affiliated criminal organisation SPECTRE, a conscious decision by Broccoli to steer the series away from current international politics.

The story that emerged sees 007 assigned to help young Russian Tatiana Romanova defect from her job as a clerk in the Russian Embassy in Istanbul with an invaluable Lektor cipher machine. Tatiana is an unwitting pawn in a plan by terrorist organisation SPECTRE who plan to use her to kill Bond and discredit the USSR and British secret service agencies. With the help of Kerim Bey, Bond and Tatiana escape on board the Orient Express. Bond defeats SPECTRE agent Donald “Red” Grant in a fist fight onboard a cramped train compartment but is chased by a SPECTRE helicopter and speedboats across the gulf of Venice. After defeating one final adversary, Rosa Klebb, the architect of the SPECTRE murder organisation, Bond and Tatiana are left alone on a romantic boat ride.

With Sean Connery returning as Bond, the rest of the casting encompassed actor and novelist Robert Shaw as Grant, Academy Award nominee and singer Lotte Lenya as Klebb (aka SPECTRE No. 3) and Mexican character actor Pedro Armendáriz (a suggestion from legendary Westerns director John Ford) as Kerim Bey, head of British Secret Service ‘Station T’ in Istanbul. Yet the tricky role to cast proved to be Tatiana Romanova. Press releases put a request out for a “young Greta Garbo” — Italian actress and runner up in the Miss Universe competition Daniela Bianchi won the role.

Shooting started on April 1 1963. On April 8-9, Young shot the first meeting between Bond and Tatiana, a scene so perfectly realised it became a piece for actors and actresses auditioning for the series over the next 40 years. Young’s ambition to up the ante on the action in the series also provided complications for the shoot. The Turkey boat chase was scrapped because the boats were moving too slowly and was subsequently re-shot in Scotland, along with the helicopter attacking Bond and Tatiana.Young’s rapid shooting style was augmented by editor Peter’s Hunt’s faster, more kinetic editing style. The approach was typified by the fight between Bond and Grant on the Orient Express, which only utilised stunt doubles in two shots. Hunt also suggested putting the scene of Grant seemingly murdering 007 before the titles, thus creating the pre-credit sequence that has become a hallmark of the series.

Composer John Barry delivered a rich lush score, adding a new composition ‘007’ that captured the adventurous spirit of the character. The composer of the musical Oliver! Lionel Bart wrote the theme song performed by Matt Munro that reached #20 in the UK charts, the soundtrack album charting on both sides of the Atlantic.

Premiering on October 10, 1963, From Russia With Love became the highest grossing film in the UK to that point and broke box office records across Europe, cementing Bond’s place as a cinematic phenomenon.

Aston Martin Recreate 25 Goldfinger DB5 Cars

Posted by

The iconic Aston Martin DB5 is back, thanks to a unique collaboration between Aston Martin and EON Productions. A series of 25 Goldfinger DB5 continuation editions, will be created for customers based on James Bond’s legendary car from 1964 and built by Aston Martin Works at Newport Pagnell – the original home of the DB5. They will be authentic reproductions of the DB5 seen on screen, with some sympathetic modifications to ensure the highest levels of build quality and reliability.

This authenticity will extend to include functioning gadgets, such as revolving number plates, which were made famous in Goldfinger. The gadgets will be co-developed with Oscar®-winner Chris Corbould OBE, special effects supervisor from the James Bond films. Officially sanctioned by Aston Martin and EON Productions, all the Goldfinger edition cars will be produced to one specification – Silver Birch paint – just like the original.

Since its seminal appearance in Goldfinger the DB5 has featured in a further six James Bond movies: Thunderball (1965), GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Casino Royale (2006), Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015). James Bond and his DB5 have become two icons of popular culture and one of the most successful and enduring movie partnerships of all-time.

Andy Palmer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Aston Martin, said: “The connection between Aston Martin and James Bond is something of which we are very proud and it is remarkable that the DB5 remains the definitive James Bond car after so many years. To own an Aston Martin has long been an aspiration for James Bond fans, but to own a Silver Birch DB5, complete with gadgets and built to the highest standards in the very same factory as the original James Bond cars? Well, that is surely the ultimate collectors’ fantasy. The skilled craftspeople at Aston Martin Works and the expert special effects team from the James Bond films are about to make this fantasy real for 25 very lucky customers.”

Paul Spires, Managing Director at Aston Martin Works, added of the Goldfinger DB5 continuation editions: “The connection between Aston Martin and James Bond originated more than half a century ago. Creating 25 Goldfinger continuations and working with EON Productions and special effects supervisor, Chris Corbould, is something truly unique and a real career highlight for everyone involved here at Aston Martin Works.”

Each Goldfinger DB5 continuation car will be priced at £2.75m plus taxes. First deliveries to customers will commence in 2020.

Focus Of The Week: The World Is Not Enough Boat Chase

Posted by

The World Is Not Enough opens with the longest pre-credit sequence in 007 history lasting 14 minutes. After retrieving a large sum of money from a Swiss banker in Bilbao, James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) hands it over to oil tycoon Sir Robert King (David Calder) at M16 HQ in London. When the money explodes killing King, Bond sees the Cigar Girl assassin (Maria Grazia Cucinotta) in a boat trying to shoot him so steals a small experimental boat from Q branch to give chase. The high-speed pursuit takes place along the Thames, past the Houses of Parliament and through a restaurant, ending at the Millennium Dome where the Cigar Girl comes to a spectacular end in a hot air balloon rather than give up her secrets to Bond.

“In the past we had not really used London as a location,” said Producer Michael G. Wilson. “When I saw the logistics involved in arranging the chase up and down the Thames, I understood why.

The sequence was filmed between March 29 and May 7 1999. On the first day of filming, a burst of gunfire prompted a member of the public to call the emergency services but the production already had police officers on set. Other challenges saw the highly tuned engines of the speed boats often breaking down and the tide played havoc with continuity. “The visual difference can be quite large with sand banks appearing and disappearing during shots,” recalled Second Unit Director Vic Armstrong.

On April 16 at Millwall docks, the production captured debatably the most spectacular moment in the sequence as Bond’s boat performs a mid air barrel roll. Unable to achieve the stunt with a ramp like the AMC Hornet corkscrew jump in The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), the roll was performed by stuntman Gary Powell using Vickers air mortars attached to the side of the boat — six cameras captured the stunt.

“Everybody’s in love with Bond and everybody wanted to co-operate,” remembered director Michael Apted about the smooth running of the sequence. “The doors were opened for us to work on the Thames; to shoot around the Houses of Parliament to shoot on, in, and around the Millennium Dome. It’s a great credit to the people who had made the previous Bonds.”