carrying a Walther PPK and it jammed. The gun was subsequently withdrawn from use.
In the Pierce Brosnan films the PPK was updated with a Walther P99, but they reverted to a PPK again with Daniel Craig in
Quantum Of Solace
. Whenever I had to fire the PPK, I used to anticipate the ‘bang’ and blink. The director would call for us to go again, because I often blinked and winced several seconds before I pulled the trigger. Such a coward.
EXPLOSIVE FUN
A rocket-firing plaster cast. Only Q could come up with such a novelty!
A new Ericsson mobile phone did everything from remotely driving a car to … making a phone call in
Tomorrow Never Dies
.
Desmond Llewelyn posing as a car rental salesman at Hamburg Airport in
Tomorrow Never Dies
. He had a hard time persuading Pierce Brosnan’s Jimmy Bond to take out accident insurance!
The first real Bond gadget was of course the attaché case in
From Russia With Love
. It contained:
A N AR -7 .22 SURVIVAL RIFLE WITH INFRARED TELESCOPE 50 G OLD S OVEREIGNS
A TEAR GAS CANISTER DISGUISED AS TALCUM POWDER
A MMUNITION FOR RIFLE
A THROWING KNIFE
But should you ever find yourself issued with one, be sure to turn the catches the correct way when opening, or else the tear gas canister will explode in your face.
Terence Young and Peter Hunt decided to have a bit of fun with this element of the case when some United Artists executives were visiting Pinewood. They ran the first couple of reels of the movie, and when it reached the scene where Bond opens the attaché case, Peter cut to the huge explosion from the end of
Dr. No
and ran the closing titles. The End.
Although he and Terence collapsed in hysterics, the UA execs were not particularly amused. But that was the type of fun you could have on a Bond movie.
In
Goldfinger
a brilliant set of homing beacons was presented to Jim. The first, larger, one was attached to the villain’s vehicle and its early GPS-type technology used to locate his Swiss base. The second, smaller one, concealed in Jim’s shoe, allowed MI6 to track him. It really was a prototype of GPS as we know it today – and very useful for the likes of jealous wives.
Q came up with some jolly ideas in
Thunderball
– the first time he was sent on location, incidentally, but Desmond couldn’t sun himself in the Bahamas for continuity reasons – including the Bell Rocket Belt, which was used to propel Bond into the air when escaping Jacques Bouvar; then there was the Underwater Jet Pack used during the final undersea battle. Most usefully, there was an underwater camera capable of taking eight shots in darkness using an infrared film. We take that sort of thing for granted these days, but back then it was revolutionary.
While in Japan, Jim took full advantage of visiting their version of Q-Branch in
You Only Live Twice
. He marvelled at the mini-rocket cigarette Tiger Tanaka demonstrated – capable of shooting a jet-powered dart accurately up to thirty yards – and quipped, ‘This cigarette can really save your life.’
A handy set of folding pocket binoculars.
Then there was dear Little Nellie: the Wallis WA-116 Series 1 autogyro, assembled (and disassembled) to fit into several suitcases. Nellie is armed with rocket launchers, air mines, machine guns, rear-mounted flame-throwers and infrared-guided AA smart missiles. The idea for her inclusion came one morning when Ken Adam heard a radio interview with Nellie’s inventor, Wing Commander Ken Wallis, saying he’d relish the chance to pit his little autogyro against ‘the big boys’. She certainly did him proud in the movie.
In order to identify a few people in
A View To A Kill
, Jim is issued with a miniature camera cunningly hidden in his signet ring.
When Sean departed the series and George Lazenby stepped in there was a distinct lack of gadgets. Okay, there was radioactive lint, a safe cracker and a prototype Xerox machine, but not much else to excite us technical geeks. Bond was to rely more
In the Pierce Brosnan films the PPK was updated with a Walther P99, but they reverted to a PPK again with Daniel Craig in
Quantum Of Solace
. Whenever I had to fire the PPK, I used to anticipate the ‘bang’ and blink. The director would call for us to go again, because I often blinked and winced several seconds before I pulled the trigger. Such a coward.
EXPLOSIVE FUN
A rocket-firing plaster cast. Only Q could come up with such a novelty!
A new Ericsson mobile phone did everything from remotely driving a car to … making a phone call in
Tomorrow Never Dies
.
Desmond Llewelyn posing as a car rental salesman at Hamburg Airport in
Tomorrow Never Dies
. He had a hard time persuading Pierce Brosnan’s Jimmy Bond to take out accident insurance!
The first real Bond gadget was of course the attaché case in
From Russia With Love
. It contained:
A N AR -7 .22 SURVIVAL RIFLE WITH INFRARED TELESCOPE 50 G OLD S OVEREIGNS
A TEAR GAS CANISTER DISGUISED AS TALCUM POWDER
A MMUNITION FOR RIFLE
A THROWING KNIFE
But should you ever find yourself issued with one, be sure to turn the catches the correct way when opening, or else the tear gas canister will explode in your face.
Terence Young and Peter Hunt decided to have a bit of fun with this element of the case when some United Artists executives were visiting Pinewood. They ran the first couple of reels of the movie, and when it reached the scene where Bond opens the attaché case, Peter cut to the huge explosion from the end of
Dr. No
and ran the closing titles. The End.
Although he and Terence collapsed in hysterics, the UA execs were not particularly amused. But that was the type of fun you could have on a Bond movie.
In
Goldfinger
a brilliant set of homing beacons was presented to Jim. The first, larger, one was attached to the villain’s vehicle and its early GPS-type technology used to locate his Swiss base. The second, smaller one, concealed in Jim’s shoe, allowed MI6 to track him. It really was a prototype of GPS as we know it today – and very useful for the likes of jealous wives.
Q came up with some jolly ideas in
Thunderball
– the first time he was sent on location, incidentally, but Desmond couldn’t sun himself in the Bahamas for continuity reasons – including the Bell Rocket Belt, which was used to propel Bond into the air when escaping Jacques Bouvar; then there was the Underwater Jet Pack used during the final undersea battle. Most usefully, there was an underwater camera capable of taking eight shots in darkness using an infrared film. We take that sort of thing for granted these days, but back then it was revolutionary.
While in Japan, Jim took full advantage of visiting their version of Q-Branch in
You Only Live Twice
. He marvelled at the mini-rocket cigarette Tiger Tanaka demonstrated – capable of shooting a jet-powered dart accurately up to thirty yards – and quipped, ‘This cigarette can really save your life.’
A handy set of folding pocket binoculars.
Then there was dear Little Nellie: the Wallis WA-116 Series 1 autogyro, assembled (and disassembled) to fit into several suitcases. Nellie is armed with rocket launchers, air mines, machine guns, rear-mounted flame-throwers and infrared-guided AA smart missiles. The idea for her inclusion came one morning when Ken Adam heard a radio interview with Nellie’s inventor, Wing Commander Ken Wallis, saying he’d relish the chance to pit his little autogyro against ‘the big boys’. She certainly did him proud in the movie.
In order to identify a few people in
A View To A Kill
, Jim is issued with a miniature camera cunningly hidden in his signet ring.
When Sean departed the series and George Lazenby stepped in there was a distinct lack of gadgets. Okay, there was radioactive lint, a safe cracker and a prototype Xerox machine, but not much else to excite us technical geeks. Bond was to rely more
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