James Bond Essentials

50 years ago today the cast and crew of Dr No received their draft schedule for the first James Bond film according to the official James Bond twitter account.

In 1964, after Terrence Young turned down the opportunity to direct the third Bond movie, Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman turned to another young British director instead, Guy Hamilton. The choice of Hamilton was not a particularly surprising one; the producers of the bond movies had long considered him for the position and in fact [...]

This article is by guest writer Edward Biddulph. It is clear from the words given to M, and the description of James Bond reading the book, that, rather than simply referencing the title, Ian Fleming read in detail Alan Moyle’s guide on naturopathy, Nature Cure Explained (1950), before he wrote Thunderball (1961), the adventure in [...]

After being attacked at a gypsy camp in From Russia With Love, Kerim vows to kill the leader of the band of Bulgars involved. He plans on shooting Krilencu when he tries to make an escape through a trap door in an advertising hoarding – Marilyn Monroe in the book and Anita Ekberg in the [...]

In ‘The Book of Bond‘, Kingsley Amis (writing as Lt-Col Bill Tanner after the Chief-of-Staff in Fleming’s novels) describes Bond’s library saying that it should be modest and that more extensive collections go with “serious criminal tendencies”. While Amis believed that Bond’s library was limited to a handful of books there is no evidence that [...]

We only have to wait until Ian Fleming’s second James Bond novel, “Live And Let Die”, to find 007 scuba diving, when Bond is on the tail Mr Big. Ian Fleming was fascinated by the underwater world and sea life, probably the season it features prominently in two Bond novels. Fleming had met underwater pioneer [...]

Find out more about Daniel Craig’s workout for Casino Royale. Includes links to learn more about increasing fitness and building muscle. Get a body like Bond!

Despite the occasional change of loyalty to Lotus or BMW – and you can always argue that as those cars were supplied by Q-branch that they don’t represent a change of loyalty at all on the part of 007 – Bond has stuck with Aston Martin for a large part of his celluloid career.