Focus Of The Week: Pierce Brosnan

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Pierce Brosnan successfully brought James Bond into the 1990’s and the 21st Century. His portrayal of 007 in 1995’s GoldenEye ensured Bond’s relevance after the end of the Cold War and the success of Die Another Day in 2002 showed 007’s enduring appeal after 9/11.

Pierce Brendan Brosnan was born in Ireland in 1953. On the day Ian Fleming died, August 12 1964, eleven-year-old Pierce arrived in London to live with his mother. Brosnan recalls seeing Goldfinger on the big screen, his first film after moving to England; “I was an 11-year-old boy from the bogs of Ireland and there was this beautiful gold lady on a bed–naked. It made quite the impression on me.”

After attending Elliot School in London, Pierce worked as a commercial artist and also performed in a fire-eating act before studying at the London Drama Centre for three years. After graduating he became assistant stage manager at the Theatre Royal, York, where he was handpicked by playwright Tennessee Williams to star in the British premiere of The Red Devil Battery Sign. Brosnan received rave reviews.

During this time Brosnan married Australian actress Cassandra Harris. She had appeared as one of Bond’s leading ladies in For Your Eyes Only.  When Pierce visited Cassandra on the set in Corfu, a number of people, including Producer Cubby Broccoli, felt that Brosnan had the looks and bearing of a future 007.

When Roger Moore resigned from the role of 007, the world’s press touted numerous actors, including Pierce, as the next 007. However, Brosnan’s involvement in the Remington Steele series meant that Timothy Dalton became the fourth 007.

On April 11, 1994, Timothy Dalton announced his resignation as Bond after starring in two films. On June 1 of that year, Brosnan received a call from his agent saying “Hello Mr Bond, you’ve got the part.” Seven days later at a press event in London, Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli officially announced Brosnan as the fifth James Bond. He went on to star in four Bond films: GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002).

In July 2003, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Brosnan an honorary OBE (Order of the British Empire) for his “outstanding contribution to the British film industry.”

Focus Of The Week: Tomorrow Never Dies Bike Chase

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On May 12th, 1997 the Tomorrow Never Dies first and second units travelled to Thailand to begin shooting the motorbike chase sequence.

The scene sees Bond and Wai Lin handcuffed to each other, attempting to evade Carver’s men, who follow them in two Range Rovers and a Eurocopter 350B A-Star helicopter. Wai Lin acts as Bond’s co-pilot, helping him navigate while Carver’s men fire at them with machine guns. Mounted on a BMW R1200 motorbike, they speed along streets, walkways, and rooftops, jumping from one building to another to escape a hail of bullets. When the helicopter traps Bond and Wai Lin in a courtyard, they grab a washing line and accelerate towards it then slide the motorbike on its side, just beneath the rotors. Bond slings the line into the helicopter’s tail rotor, causing it to crash and explode.

Second-unit director Vic Armstrong on choosing the BMW; “With the bike chase, I didn’t want to resort to the standard use of a motorcross bike, which is convenient for jumps and tricks. Instead, we went for the biggest, heaviest, and most unwieldy bike – the BMW R1200C Cruiser – and I built the chase around it. That’s what I wanted: to display its power and weight.”

The chase sequence has become an iconic piece of stunt driving. French stunt-rider Jean-Pierre Goy refused to use wires and cables when he made the astounding 44-foot leap between two buildings with a passenger on board.

The BMW R1200 is on display at Bond in Motion at the London Film Museum. londonfilmmuseum.com/

Focus Of The Week: Blofeld (Christoph Waltz)

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Following a lead left for him by M and a rogue mission to Mexico, Bond infiltrates a secret meeting in Rome and uncovers the existence of the sinister organisation known as SPECTRE. During the meeting he comes face to face with an enigmatic and chilling character, the organisation’s leading man, Oberhauser, played by two-time Academy Award®-winner Christoph Waltz.

After their escapade in Austria, Bond and Madeleine Swann travel together to Morocco to uncover the truth behind SPECTRE. Having travelled through the desert by train they eventually arrive at the end of the line, disembarking at a desolate station. A car appears and carries them off to Oberhauser’s lair, a sprawling complex housed inside an enormous crater.

Deep in SPECTRE territory, Bond faces his sternest test as he and Oberhauser spar verbally and mentally, a process that exposes a deep connection between the two men. It is here that Oberhauser reveals he has changed his name to Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Bond finds himself in serious trouble but with the help of an explosive watch given to him by Q, he and Madeleine are able to escape Blofeld’s clutches and watch as his lair goes up in flames.

When Blofeld arrives in London he lures Bond to the crumbling old MI6 building for a final showdown. Yet again Madeleine and Bond escape just in time, this time racing up the River Thames in a speedboat. With Madeleine at the wheel, Bond is able to take down Blofeld’s helicopter. Faced with the opportunity to finish Blofeld once and for all, Bond leaves him to be arrested by M.

Focus Of The Week: Aston Martin DB10

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The 24th James Bond movie, Spectre, marked a milestone in the 50-year relationship between the film series and the car manufacturer Aston Martin who, for the very first time, built a car specifically for the film. The likes of the iconic DB5, which debuted in 1964’s Goldfinger, the DBS from 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and the V8 Volante from 1987’s The Living Daylights — to name but a few — were all cars that were available for public purchase. The DB10, however, was something else entirely.
The DB10 is a concept car. The chassis is based on a modified V8 Vantage, though with a longer wheelbase, and it boasts a 4.7-litre V8 engine. It has an estimated top speed of 190 mph and can get from 0-60mph in just 4.7 seconds. In Spectre the car was originally intended for 009 and came equipped with rear flame thrower, hidden rear mounted gun and ejector seat.
The DB10 is the sixth different Aston to appear in a James Bond movie, and only ten of these concept cars were built. Eight were employed to film key scenes in Spectre, while the other two were manufactured for promotional use. One of the promotional vehicles was auctioned off for charity in 2016 where it sold for just over £2.4m. Proceeds from the sale benefited Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The car features in a breath-taking night chase that careens through the streets of Rome, as Hinx (played by Dave Bautista) gives chase in a Jaguar C-X75, another high-tech concept car.
You can see one of the Aston Martin DB10’s at Bond In Motion londonfilmmuseum.com/

Focus Of The Week: Alec Trevelyan

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Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean) launches a plot to destroy London as revenge for the betrayal of his parents by the British Army at the end of World War II. Trevelyan’s parents were Cossacks who opposed Stalin and fought with the Nazis. When the British captured many Cossacks in Austria, they were turned over to the Soviets who swiftly executed them. Trevelyan’s parents survived, but his father could not live with the shame and killed himself and his mother.

Trevelyan quickly rose through the ranks of MI6 to become 006. While MI6 knew about his parents’ fate, the service believed he was too young to have been affected by what had happened.

Trevelyan accompanies Bond on a mission to the Soviet Union to destroy the Arkangel Chemical Weapons Facility, managed by Colonel Ourumov. The raid gives Trevelyan an opportunity to fake his own death. While the original plan anticipated the capture of Bond, 007 escapes and causes an explosion that scars Trevelyan.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Travelyan and Ourumov sell arms to illegal clients, such as Iraq. Trevelyan calls himself Janus after the two-faced Roman god, and makes his residence on an armoured train once used to transport nuclear missiles.

All this is a prelude to Trevelyan’s master plan: to transfer billions of pounds from the Bank of England and set off the electromagnetic pulse space weapon GoldenEye over London to erase any record of the transaction. With the aid of hacker Boris Grishenko, assassin Xenia Onatopp, and Ourumov (now a General), he organises a massacre of staff at the Russian Space Weapons Centre, Severnaya, in order to obtain the GoldenEye satellite system. A minor hitch occurs when one of the staff, Natalya Simonova, survives. This draws 007 to Russia. Trevelyan meets Bond once again after Xenia Onatopp fails to kill him. Trevelyan ends up in Severnaya’s sister control station in Cuba, where he and Bond fight to the death on a giant satellite dish transmitter. Competitive to the last, Trevelyan taunts 007: “I was always better.” Bond responds by dropping his former friend and colleague from the antenna, which falls and crushes Trevelyan to death.

Focus Of The Week: Dr. Holly Goodhead

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Fully-trained astronaut, CIA agent, and Vassar College graduate, Dr. Holly Goodhead works for the Drax Corporation, supposedly on loan from NASA. In reality, her job entails investigating billionaire Hugo Drax’s suspicious activities for the CIA. Holly’s skills as an astronaut allow her to travel into orbit with Bond and undermine Drax’s plot to annihilate the Earth’s entire population and repopulate the planet with his own squad of physically perfect humans.

Holly meets Bond after the disappearance of one of the Moonraker shuttles. She declines to share any of her concerns about Drax in California or when Bond confronts her about her CIA connection in Venice. Despite sleeping with Bond, she does not trust him until he saves her life on the Sugarloaf Mountain funicular railroad in Brazil.

Drax’s thugs kidnap Holly and bring her to his space shuttle launch complex. She remains a prisoner until Jaws throws Bond into her holding quarters. The pair escape and take over a shuttle. They travel to Drax’s secret space station where they discover the extent of Drax’s plan. Holly and Bond then work together to destroy his operation.

Focus Of The Week: Rosa Klebb

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From Russia With Love’s Colonel Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya) a.k.a SPECTRE Number 3, is the former head of operations for SMERSH. She relishes the mechanisms of authoritarian structure with a sadomasochistic delight.

Klebb defected from the Soviet Intelligence apparatus to run operations for SPECTRE. She implements SPECTRE’s Director of Planning Kronsteen’s scheme by selecting assassin Donald Grant and recruiting Soviet cipher clerk Tatiana Romanova to entice Bond to steal a Lektor decoder. She also guides Grant to commit acts of sabotage and murder to heat up the Cold War in Istanbul. When Bond survives Grant’s attempt to kill him on the Orient Express, Klebb, under personal orders from Blofeld, goes after Bond in Venice.

Disguised as a hotel maid, she tries to steal the Lektor and assassinate Bond, attacking him with the poison tipped blade hidden in her shoe. But Tatiana shoots Klebb before she can fatally kick Bond.

Focus Of The Week: Max Zorin

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Max Zorin’s (Christopher Walken) boundless ambition leads him to create a plot to corner the world’s microchip market. Zorin built a fortune in oil and gas trading and then expanded into electronics. Gaining a reputation as a staunch anti-Communist and a penniless refugee who made good, Zorin acquired influential friends in European governments.

Zorin’s success proves a perfect cover for his second life as a KGB agent who, working for General Gogol, funnels important technology into the Soviet Union. Zorin also works behind the KGB’s back, providing technology to a group of microchip manufacturers whom he hopes will join him in a microchip production and distribution cartel. M becomes suspicious of Zorin when a microchip recovered by 007 in Siberia matches a chip impervious to electromagnetic pulse damage developed by a Zorin Industries company. Zorin plans to trigger a massive double earthquake that will flood the entire San Francisco Bay area, including Silicon Valley, home of 80 percent of world microchip production. Calling his plan Operation Main Strike, he foresees that his cartel’s chips will then rule the market.

Zorin has a questionable obsession with horse racing. Zorin and Dr. Carl Mortner, the steroid scientist formerly known as Hans Glaub, use remote-triggered microchips to inject steroids in racehorses during competition. This draws attention to his activities and compels him to order his accomplice May Day to murder two investigators in France and attempt to kill 007.

As operation Main Strike nears, Zorin severs all ties with the KGB and commits grander crimes. He even machine guns his own employees at his mine and betrays May Day. This final act proves the undoing of Operation Main Strike. May Day sacrifices her life to remove the detonator from the tons of explosives set to trigger the fateful earthquake.

When Zorin attempts to escape in his airship, Bond grabs onto the mooring line and ties it to the vertical struts of the Golden Gate Bridge, where Zorin and Bond battle. Bond gains the advantage, and Zorin falls to his death.

Focus Of The Week: Timothy Dalton

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Timothy Dalton approached the role of Bond with the desire to bring the character of 007 as written by Ian Fleming to the screen. Dalton made the role his own by rereading all the Fleming novels and emphasising the undercurrent of bitterness and ruthlessness that he felt defined the literary Bond while still embracing Bond’s élan and extraordinary skills and determination.

Dalton began his acting training at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 1964 and spent his summers studying at the National Youth Theatre. He made his debut on stage in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus at the Queen’s Theatre. He left RADA after almost two years and joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

It wasn’t long before movie producers came calling. He made his film debut in 1968’s The Lion In Winter, starring Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn, and went on to star in such films as Wuthering Heights (1970), Cromwell (1970) and Mary, Queen Of Scots (1971).

In 1987, after being cast as Bond, Timothy Dalton spoke about his long path to slipping on the shoulder holster. “When I was about 25, Mr Broccoli kindly asked me if I would be interested in taking over from Sean Connery who was about to relinquish Bond,” he recalled. “It was not a firm offer, but an expression of interest. Frankly, I thought it would have been a stupid move for me. I was too young – Bond should be between 35 and 40 years old.” Dalton continued acting, playing a wide variety of roles. “Then, several years ago, when Roger Moore was uncertain about continuing as 007, I was approached again. The situation was very vague, there wasn’t a script yet, and I had already been asked to do Flash Gordon. But I was pleased to have been considered.” Dalton was unavailable to sign in early 1986 so the producers agreed to delay the start of production of The Living Daylights until his current movie, Brenda Starr, had wrapped. Dalton accepted, becoming the fourth man to play James Bond. He went on to star in one more Bond film, Licence To Kill (1989) and announced from the set of TV series Scarlett (1994) that he would not be playing Bond for a third time.

Focus Of The Week: Honey Ryder

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Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress) stands as the archetypal Bond woman: strong, resilient, and beautiful. Searching Caribbean beaches for seashells, she gets swept up in 007’s mission to stop Dr. No destroying US rockets.

Before encountering James Bond, Honey travelled the world with her marine zoologist father. He disappeared during a trip to Crab Key with local authorities claiming he drowned, but Honey believes Dr. No is responsible.
Honey meets Bond on Crab Key where they are quickly captured by Dr No’s guards who kill Bond’s ally, Quarrel. By visiting Crab Key, Bond and Honey have been exposed to radioactive waste from No’s nuclear generator. They are cleansed before being taken to their rooms. Bond and Honey then pass out after drinking drugged coffee.

At dinner, Bond tells Dr. No that Honey has nothing to do with his mission, but the villain senses Bond’s protective feeling for Honey and uses her to provoke 007. Dr. No’s men manacle her in a chamber that slowly fills with water, but Bond rescues her. They escape in a boat seconds before Dr. No’s nuclear reactor explodes, obliterating Crab Key. Honey ends up in Bond’s arms.

Focus Of The Week: Lewis Gilbert

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Lewis Gilbert brought scope and an incredibly wry sense of humour to the James Bond films, injecting his 007 adventures with a layer of elegant and exotic fantasy.

Born into a family of music-hall performers, Lewis Gilbert began his career as a child actor. British producer Alexander Korda offered to send him to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, but Gilbert had his sights set on directing. In 1939, he worked as an assistant on Alfred Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn.

When WWII broke out, he joined the RAF. Attached to the US Air Corps film Unit, he directed several documentaries. He continued to write and direct documentaries after the war, before directing low budget features. He eventually graduated to bigger productions, making a name for himself with ALFIE (1966), which in turn made an international star of Michael Caine.

Bond producer Cubby Broccoli was able to persuade Gilbert to direct You Only Live Twice (1967). Gilbert brought a fresh eye to the series and returned a decade later to direct The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), capitalising on Roger Moore’s 007 persona in the process. The immensely profitable Moonraker (1979) followed, after which Gilbert returned to making contained dramatic comedies.

Find out more about Lewis Gilbert in his autobiography: www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Flashbacks-Autobiography-Lewis-Gilbert-Sixty-Years-Director/1904674240

Focus Of The Week: Daniel Craig

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Daniel Craig redefined the character of James Bond, stepping out of the shadows cast by his predecessors in the role and making 007 feel new, fresh and dangerous. Craig brought a physical rawness, emotional focus, and darkly seductive air to Ian Fleming’s creation; critics, fans and moviegoers around the world embraced his interpretation, which has helped to make his Bond films some of the highest-grossing in the franchise.

At 16, Daniel Craig applied to study at the National Youth Theatre in London. There he earned a reputation as a diverse and dedicated actor. Craig appeared in numerous television productions, including the BBC’s Our Friends In The North. After winning critical acclaim for his role in Love Is The Devil he went on to work with Steven Spielberg (Munich) and Sam Mendes (Road To Perdition). The lead in the underworld thriller Layer Cake (2004) brought Craig worldwide acclaim.

With the decision in early 2004 to recast the role of James Bond, the filmmakers’ thoughts soon turned to Daniel Craig and when they had a script in place they sent it to him. “Once I sat down and read the story, I just thought that I wanted to tell this story,” recalled Craig. “I’m a big Bond fan.”

On October 14, 2005, Daniel Craig arrived at the banks of the River Thames, stepped onto a rigid raider boat piloted by a Royal Navy escort, and raced across the water to HMS President for his introduction to the world’s media.

Just over 14 months later, Craig became the only 007 actor to have starred in a Bond film which took over $593 million in worldwide box office (Casino Royale). He has played Bond in three films since, Quantum Of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015). Craig’s portrayal of Bond has the sense that beneath the veneer of 007’s implacable outer shell exists a dark, damaged, and extraordinary man. His remarkable transformation of the character has brought a new sense of emotional reality to the Bond films.