EQUIPPING JAMES BOND This Page Intentionally Left Blank Equipping James Bond Guns, Gadgets, and Technological Enthusiasm
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EQUIPPING JAMES BOND This page intentionally left blank Equipping James Bond Guns, Gadgets, and Technological Enthusiasm André Millard JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS BALTIMORE © 2018 Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2018 Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Mary land 21218 - 4363 www . press . jhu . edu Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Millard, A. J., author. Title: Equipping James Bond : guns, gadgets, and technological enthusiasm / André Millard. Description: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018004446| ISBN 9781421426648 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781421426655 (electronic) | ISBN 1421426641 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 142142665X (electronic) Subjects: LCSH: Espionage— Technological innovations. | Bond, James (Fictitious character) Classification: LCC UB270 .M545 2018 | DDC 327.12028/4— dc23 LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2018004446 A cata log rec ord for this book is available from the British Library. Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410- 516- 6936 or specialsales@press . jhu . edu. Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post- consumer waste, whenever pos si ble. CONTENTS List of Abbreviations vii Introduction 1 001 The Technological Enthusiasts 5 002 The Secret Intelligence Ser vice 16 003 The Great War and the Threat of Modernity 27 004 Imagining the Future: Technology on Film 39 005 Spy Films 50 006 Ian Fleming, Intelligence Officer 63 007 Equipment 74 008 Irregular Warriors 86 009 The Trea sure Hunt 95 010 Nuclear Anx i eties 108 011 Gadgets 118 012 Guns 131 013 The Special Relationship and the Cold War 142 014 The Technological Revolution 153 015 Into the Future 165 016 Keeping Up with the Times 177 Notes 191 Index 207 This page intentionally left blank ABBREVIATIONS CR Casino Royale (New York: MJF Books, 1953) DAF Diamonds Are Forever (1956), in More Gilt- Edged Bonds (New York: Macmillan, 1965) DN Doctor No (New York: Macmillan, 1958) FRL From Rus sia with Love (New York: Macmillan, 1957) FVK From a View to a Kill (1960), in Bonded Fleming (New York: Viking, 1965) FYE For Your Eyes Only (1960), in Bonded Fleming (New York: Viking, 1965) GF Goldfinger (New York: Macmillan, 1959) HR “The Hildebrand Rarity” (1960), in Bonded Fleming (New York: Viking, 1965) LLD Live and Let Die (1954), in More Gilt- Edged Bonds (New York: Macmillan, 1965) MGG The Man with the Golden Gun (New York: New American Library, 1965) MR Moonraker (1955), in More Gilt- Edged Bonds (New York: Macmillan, 1965) OCT Octopussy (New York: New American Library, 1966) OHM On Her Majesty’s Secret Ser vice (1963), in James Bond Omnibus, vol. 2 (New York: MJF Books, 1992) RSC “Risico” (1960), in Bonded Fleming (New York: Viking, 1965) SLM The Spy Who Loved Me (New York: Viking, 1962) TB Thunderball (1961), in James Bond Omnibus, vol. 2 (New York: MJF Books, 1992) YLT You Only Live Twice (1964), in James Bond Omnibus, vol. 2 (New York: MJF Books, 1992) This page intentionally left blank EQUIPPING JAMES BOND This page intentionally left blank Introduction James Bond surely needs no introduction. It is estimated that half the world’s population has seen at least one James Bond film. Not since Sherlock Holmes has there been a fictional figure who has managed to free himself so completely from his creator to enjoy his own privileged position in popu lar culture. James Bond was a hero of espionage fiction well before he became a film commodity, but it is the 26 films (as of this writing) that have created the Bond we know today, as well as the Bond brand. In his study of the Bond films James Chapman says that they have become something of a ritual, and other commentators have ar- gued that watching Bond films is comparable to a religion.1 Central to our enjoyment of the films are the gadgets, and it is significant that the actor who has achieved the longest run in the series is the man who equips Bond. Q has been called the Merlin to Bond’s Arthur, and Desmond Llewelyn played him in 15 films from 1963 to 1999. The gadgets are so central to the Bond character that they can be used, along with what the press calls “the Bond girls,” as a shorthand for each film in the series. In the opening titles of On Her Majesty’s Secret Ser vice (1969), which had the difficult job of introduc- ing a new actor playing Bond, the gadgets are used to provide a history of the previous Bond adventures: the watch- garrote employed in From Rus sia with Love (1963), the underwater breathing device from Thunderball (1965), and the knife belt worn by Honey Ryder in Dr. No (1962). While Fleming’s nostalgia for the disappearing past of secret intelligence survived in the character of James Bond, the nostalgia of the films’ producers, Albert R. Broccoli and Herschel “Harry” Saltzman, for the halcyon days of “Bondmania” was expressed in the gad- gets. The most famous of them all, the Aston Martin DB5, was retired as Bond’s transportation after Thunderball, but it returned at the end of the century in two of Pierce Brosnan’s Bond films. When Eon Productions (who owns the film 2 EQUIPPING JAMES BOND rights and made all except two of the Bond films) deci ded to break with the past in the form of a new Bond— a more sensitive, modern man— the com pany wisely kept a link to Bond tradition in the form of the vintage DB5, which delighted viewers again in the 2006 remake of Casino Royale. Ian Fleming insisted that his Bond stories were fantasies, yet he was one of the first novelists to include technical details about the equipment of espionage, which gave his stories some authenticity. Like the rest of his war time peers, Fleming called this special equipment “toys,” “gadgets,” or “gimmicks,” and he main- tained that it was these rather than the sex and vio lence of the plots that his readers remembered. The gimmicks of the novels became the gadgets of the films, and they have become as impor tant as the women and the martinis to the Bond brand. So a James Bond without his little technological helpers would be unthink- able. In fact, such is the audiences’ fascination with the gadgets that numerous books and articles have listed them and explained their use. There have also been several exhibitions of these artifacts, and both the Imperial War Museum and the Science Museum in London have used them to reflect on the development of technology in the twentieth century. This book takes the long view of the tech- nological development of modern spyware and finds its roots in the Second Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century. Frightening advances in military technology pushed the British government into creating Bond’s secret ser vice, and from then onward the focus of espionage was closely related to the advance of military technology. James Bond was a product of World War II, and his equipment reflects that technological era and the tension between pure science and the ingenuity of amateur inventors. Bond’s equipment was drawn from the quartermasters of the Special Opera- tions Executive (SOE) and other war time commando and espionage organ- izations, as was his worldview and modus operandi. Yet between the publication of the first Bond novel,Casino Royale, in 1953 and the (second) film of the same name in 2006, the world and its technology changed drastically. As a modern and modernizing hero, James Bond has to keep up with the times, and the film franchise is committed to incorporating the latest technology into his gadgets and also into the armories of the villains he confronts. In this way the Bond films have become a showcase for stylish, modern technologies, taking the place of science fiction novels and World’s Fairs of the twentiethcentury in anticipat- ing the machines of the future. Bond’s global audience has often had difficulty negotiating between the real and the fantasy in his world. After the release ofGoldfinger (1964) United Artists Introduction 3 received letters complaining that an English film crew should not have been allowed into the inner sanctum of Fort Knox— which was, in fact, a creation of Eon’s set designers. Although we in the audience realize that the plots are absurd and that the ending is predetermined, we tend to give the gadgets the benefit of the doubtbecause we have come to recognize Bond as a purveyor of advanced technology. The equipment of secret agents is an example of how art—in the form of motion pictures— has influenced life, and this book uncovers the prehistory of the Bond franchise by following the evolution of the spy or secret- agent film. The silent- picture fantasies of directors like Fritz Lang had a real impact on con temporary science and technology, and the equally fantastic equipment of James Bond has also influencedthose involved in the business of espionage. The hidden knife blade in the evil Rosa Klebb’s shoe in From Rus sia with Love, a gadget that attracted the attention of many in the intelligence com- munity, did not have a World War II pedigree, nor was it a confidence shared with Ian Fleming by one of his friends in the British secret ser vice; instead, it was the work of art director Syd Cain, who added a spike to the right shoe and built in a spring mechanism to make it pop out.