Bond On Bond (15 page)

One of the fun gadgets – or is it a mode of transport? – was the ‘fake crocodile’, actually a miniature motorboat used to get Jimmy to Octopussy’s Island. I bravely climbed into it for the close-ups, but allowed Paul Weston to drive it in the scene, just in case a
real
frisky crocodile wandered into shot. That might have been tricky!

In my last outing as Jim I was armed with all manner of useful gizmos. There were polarizing sunglasses that let Jim see clearly through tinted glass; a ring containing a miniature camera; a billfold that used ultraviolet light to read previously written material by picking up the indentations of pen marks on paper; a bug detector contained within an electric razor; a credit card for popping open locked windows; a tracking device to locate a stolen microchip buried in the snow; and, of course, SNOOPER – one of Q’s surveillance inventions in the form of a small, animal-like remote-controlled camera that can transmit audio/video.

After my tenure as 007 ended, Q stayed on to look after Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan. Their haul of gadgets was ever impressive and ingenious. In
The Living Daylights
Q produced a Philips Keychain, which had become widely popular in locating lost keys. However, Q’s contained some non-standard extras, including a capsule of stun gas, activated by the first bars of ‘Rule, Britannia’, and an explosive charge set off by a wolf whistle! The keychain also featured a lock-pick, effective on ninety per cent of the world’s locks …

In his second film with Timothy Dalton, Q found himself in the field and carried a bag of everyday travel items including Dentonite Toothpaste – actually plastic explosive with the detonator disguised as a packet of cigarettes. There was also a wonderful gun that could be programmed to fire for only one person, and an exploding alarm clock – guaranteed never to wake up anyone who uses it.

When Pierce donned the famous tuxedo it was accompanied by a leather belt that concealed a piton capable of firing up to seventy-five feet of high-tensile wire, that could take the weight of an average person. Then there was a Parker pen for his top pocket that contained a class-four grenade. A new wristwatch in the shape of Omega Seamaster Professional – with laser cutter and remote detonator – completed the ensemble.

When
Tomorrow Never Dies
came around, the burgeoning mobile-phone market was tapped and Ericsson supplied a concept model loaded with a variety of features, including a 20,000-volt stun gun, and a nifty fingerprint analyser. The best feature in my view was the remote control for Jimmy’s BMW – a masterpiece that no agent should be without.

With the fortieth anniversary of the films in 2002, the producers decided it was time to pay homage to some of the gadgets laid up in storage from the previous twenty films and have Bond wander around them, picking up a wristwatch (with explosive detonator and laser cutter) and a ring that can shatter bulletproof glass.

Since
Casino Royale
in 2006, the character of Q and his lab have been absent from the films. While Bond is still outfitted with a number of gadgets, they seem less futuristic and awe-inspiring and are based on technology already commercially available rather than Q’s flights of fancy. The cellphones are smarter – the one in
Quantum Of Solace
had an identification imager that could compile a composite facial image. I wonder if that was on contract or pay-as-you-go?

One thing that is constant is Jimmy’s love of a good watch – and let’s face it, it’s his watch that has got him out of several nasty situations. I used to wear an Omega all the time, and still do wear my limited-edition Submariner on occasion, but my main timepiece is a Breitling, which I used in a commercial for the Hanson Trust in Ireland. After the third and last day of filming, I asked my son Christian (who was assistant director) to take it back to the production office.

‘No, keep it, it’s yours,’ he said. There was no way I was going to pinch a £5,000 watch!

‘No,’ he said, ‘Kristina saw you admiring it and has bought it for you.’

My wife also bought me a Piaget watch, which I use when in formalwear as it’s very lightweight and thin. My wife, as well as having great taste, is also very generous.

_______________________

BOND

ON

CARS

_______________________

A
s well as gadgets, of course, Q has supplied 007 with cars for many decades now. Jimmy has driven his fair share of models: Bentley … Ford … GM … Aston Martin … Mercedes-Benz … BMW … Lotus … Rolls-Royce … Citröen … Renault. All were internationally recognized makers of motorcars and all have benefited hugely from the exposure.

It was a different story when I was making a TV series called
The Saint
. We thought it would be rather good if Simon Templar drove a British Jaguar car and our production manager, Johnny Goodman, duly approached them about a twenty-six-part primetime TV show. ‘Oh, and we need three … next week.’

They shrugged their shoulders in a rather pompous way. ‘Think of the publicity!’ Johnny exclaimed. They told Johnny they had order books bulging and a waiting list they couldn’t fulfil as it was … ‘Why do we need publicity?’

So we went to Volvo, who couldn’t do enough to help us. Volvo is still going strong … and Jaguar? Well, they’re around.

As 007 I have found myself at the wheel of many modes of vehicular transport; however, as my friend Michael Caine might say ‘not a lot of people know that …’ The Bamford & Martin 1.5-litre Side Valve Short Chassis Tourer was James Bond’s very first car.

According to the first ‘Young Bond’ book,
SilverFin
, by Charlie Higson, Jimmy inherited the car at the age of thirteen from his uncle Max, and drove it regularly, even though he was underage. The car was destroyed in the third Young Bond novel,
Double or Die
, leading Bond to replace it with the Bentley Mark IV – as later featured in Fleming’s novels, although petrol heads among you will know there has never been a Bentley model known as the ‘Mark IV’. That appellation was a creation of Ian Fleming, and erroneously perpetuated ever since.

James Bond’s car in the Ian Fleming novels was a grey 1933 Bentley convertible – featuring a 4.5-litre engine with the Amherst Villiers supercharger. Unlike in the films, no gadgets were ever installed in the cars Bond used in Fleming’s novels. The only armament mentioned at all was a .45 Colt Army Special revolver that Jim kept in the glove compartment.

The Bentley was actually the very first Bond car seen in the film series, shown briefly during
From Russia With Love
in the scene with Jimmy and Sylvia Trench alongside the River Thames. It featured the added extra of a car phone, which in 1963 was – like many other Bond gadgets – a prototype for future developments.

In
Goldfinger
Bond asks about his Bentley in Q-Branch, only to be told that it has ‘had its day’ and is instead presented with an Aston Martin DB5 – perhaps the car most famously associated with the entire 007 series. To date the model has featured in five films –
Goldfinger, Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies
and
Casino Royale
. I’m told it was also due to feature in
The World Is Not Enough
, but the shots of it being driven were cut. The 2006 reboot of the series showed Bond winning it in a game of poker in the Bahamas – without any special extras.

Though I never drove an Aston Martin as Bond, I did drive a DB5 in the comedy film
The Cannonball Run
, and a DBS in
The Persuaders!.
The DB5 also popped up in the TV film
The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E
., with George Lazenby playing a character called ‘JB’.

The DB5 car as used in
Goldfinger
and
Thunderball
was the prototype model, with another standard car (later modified) used for stunts. Both cars were loaned to Eon Productions for the duration of filmmaking and later for publicity tours. Two further cars were later purchased and ‘adapted’ for promotional use through to the late 1960s, one of which sold in 2006 for $2,090,000 (approximately £1.4 million); the second is in the Louwman Collection Museum in the Netherlands. The original gadget car, meanwhile, was stripped of its accessories and sold as a standard car, only to be retrofitted by the purchaser. It was mysteriously stolen in 1997 and has never been found. The second ‘original’ DB5 was sold in 2010, for £2.6 million.