This Week In Bond (September 6th, 2022)

The insurance company is never going to believe this

‘Casino Royale’ is back in cinemas in the UK this week as the 60th-anniversary re-release schedule moves on to the Daniel Craig era. The critically acclaimed film has been back on the big screen a number of times in recent years, more than any other Bond adventure, what with ‘Secret Cinema’ and the ‘In Concert’ series, but if by some reason you are in the UK and haven’t had that experience since 2006, then what are you waiting for?

Someone who might not be queueing up to see the film again is the publicity team for Aston Martin, who, back in 2006, were reportedly not too happy. The problem, as far as the production was concerned, was that the new DBS was just too good: it stuck to the road like glue. The script called for the car to be flipped, and after various attempts to modify the car to allow it to roll over after the sharp turn around Vesper, the stunt team resorted to a large air cannon to get the belligerent vehicle to crash.

The story goes that nobody let Aston Martin know about it, so when the trailer was released, they had a bit of a panic that consumers were going to think their car was unsafe. After all, if you had to avoid a dog running out into the street, you don’t want your car pirouetting up in the sky and setting new Guinness World Records. Much of the detail of the debacle has been lost to time, but the PR angle got so bad (reportedly) that Aston Martin threatened to pull their cars from the World Premiere. Somehow they all made up and nobody attended knew much about it.

As pointed out on the latest episode of James Bond & Friends, they weren’t the only paid product placement sponsor of the film that may have had issues with how this new 007 was treating the merchandise. The first cut of the film had Bond use his Omega watch as a knuckleduster in the sinking house finale (you can see it in place in a few shots) but cuts made to the film removed the impacts and destruction of the timepiece. Phil Nobile Jr* first spotted this nugget and explains that’s why Bond isn’t wearing his watch after he drags Vesper out of the water. Did someone from Omega have a say?

Either way, Aston Martin got the short end of the stick in the Craig era. Or did they? In fact, you could see ‘No Time To Die’ as the redemption film for the brand. Let’s take a look at the scoreboard:

Casino Royale: DBS V12 (Destroyed - barrel roll)
Quantum of Solace: DBS V12 (Heavily damaged - car chase in Italy)
Skyfall: DB5 (Destroyed by Silva)
SPECTRE: DB10 (Destroyed by driving it into the river)

Daniel Craig’s Aston Martin cars are 0 for 4 in the series, until:

No Time To Die: DB5 (Survives carnage in Italy and saves the day), Valhalla (Mint condition in Q-Branch lab), DBS Superleggra (Mint condition driven by Nomi), V8 Vantage (Mint condition driven by Bond to Norway then Madeleine to Italy).

Redemption. All four Aston Martin cars survive ‘No Time To Die’ and rebalance the score sheet as even-stevens in the Daniel Craig era.

News

Happy birthday to George Lazenby who turned 83 this week! George is currently on a tour of Australia with ‘The Music of James Bond’ with various dates - including Melbourne on the 17th of September.

Kim Sherwood launched her new book ‘Double or Nothing’ in London - the first of the trilogy exploring MI6’s other Double-O agents and the unfolding mystery of James Bond’s disappearance. MI6 was kindly invited by Ian Fleming Publications and publisher Harper Collins to interview Kim on stage at the event. The book is out now in the UK, but unfortunately for fans in America, the US publication date got pushed to April 2023. You can read a review by Ben Wiliams here, and look out for a special episode of James Bond & Friends this week when were grill Kim about the book.

Listen

It will be no surprise to regular listeners that this week is the turn of ‘Casino Royale’ as we Debrief each film as it is re-released on the big screen in the UK. Much has already been said about this well-received and well-documented film, so we invite Phil Nobile Jr, Ben Williams, and Natalie Bochenski to uncover some of the lesser-discussed qualities of this milestone production.

Watch

Our pal Calvin Dyson has been on a journey with ‘Licence To Kill,’ and like many who have matured their Bond fandom over the years, has come to a new appreciation for this darker outing that was too easily rejected back in the day. To take it even further, this week Calvin reacts to himself from the past to show just how far your opinions as a Bond fan can shift through time.

MI6 Archives

‘Body Worlds’ is a bit of a curious choice for a real-world event to have James Bond find himself in the middle of. It’s not exactly Junkanoo or Carnival. But it was a real exhibit at the time, featuring real dead bodies, just not in Miami. ‘Casino Royale’ shot the sequence in Prague, so the art department had to fake the posters.

Exit Through The Gift Shop

If you want to learn more about the locations and ideas that did not make it in to Casino Royale, then you need a copy of ‘The Peter Lamont Portfolio.’ We have limited copies available of this 100-page special publication available to order.

More Bond

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* Phil says he doesn’t read newsletters but we gave him a shout-out anyway