Maybe it's the fact I was just "across the pond" last week, but nothing says London to me like Bond, James Bond. So while we wait for the next 007 installment, the BBC came out with a wonderful film Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond.
Starring Dominic Cooper (of Mamma Mia and Captain Phillips fame) as author of twelve novels of possibly the most iconic spy ever known, the four-part mini-series details the life of the black sheep turned failed London stockbroker turned Naval Intelligence officer (with a codename 17F, his work outsmarting the Nazis was a great training ground for Bond). For Bond fanatics (that would be me), it's all here - the shaken, not stirred martinis, the womanizing, the original Miss Moneypenny, the fast quips and the blatant sexisms (to be fair, it was the forties). Moviegoers will recognize all sorts of references-- the future M, gadget pens, a penchant for Baccarat and all sort of espionage gimmicks culled from adventures spent behind enemy lines playing the Nazis against the Russians while all the time reporting back to the British. As Cooper notes, "Fleming's creativity was put to good use. All of his schemes and ideas (during his time as a Naval intelligence officer), they were so far-fetched, but then you find out some of them actually worked during the war!" Ironically the only thing he failed at was a "license to kill."
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| The first and original James Bond, actor Sean Connery with Ian Fleming |
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| Ian Fleming with wife Ann O'Neill |
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| Fleming writing his novels at his Caribbean home "Goldeneye" |
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| Period London street sets above and below |
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| Dapper and debonair: Dominic Cooper as Fleming |
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| Cooper/Fleming with Lara Pulver/Ann O'Neill |
Needless to say, the mini-series is filled with great costumes and period WWII set designs. Check it out on the BBC Wednesday nights 10/9 central.
Film credits: Vermes Cata @ BBC
