The Historical Accuracy of "Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond," Episode 1

 

Nicholas Rankin, author of Ian Fleming's Commandos, offers a review at the Oxford University Press of the first episode of the TV mini-series bio of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.   

 

The first thing you see on the screen in the new TV mini-series Fleming is Ian Fleming’s own claim that his James Bond novels were based on reality: “Everything I write has a precedent in truth.” Just before the credits we get the drama’s own slightly different claim: “Based on a true story. Some names, places and incidents are fictitious and have been changed for dramatic effect.” Between the two statements is a fast-paced 45-minute farrago that is about 45% fantasy to 55% fact, and very entertaining if you’re not too picky.

The Fleming script-team, creator John Brownlow and co-writer Don McPherson, have pillaged the biographies of the real Ian Fleming by John Pearson, Andrew Lycett, Ben Macintyre, and myself for bones of truth, then made up the rest as they attempt to blend the fictional James Bond with the real life Ian Fleming. So Fleming is dream-stuff; it looks naturalistic, but it is not realistic. Characters are caricatures, actions are metaphors for inner states. It’s a redemptive story of becoming: ”How the war turned a wastrel into a world-famous writer.”

... We flashback 13 years to 1939. Dominic Cooper looks exactly the same age in 1939 as he is supposed to be in 1952, but that’s the point of casting someone who made his name in The History Boys; instead of looking like a melancholy Roman, as the real Ian Fleming did, Cooper portrays a pugnacious boy arrested in adolescence. He’s not really impersonating Fleming, remember, in this dream-world, but embodying the Ur-Bond. 

 

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

 

http://blog.oup.com/2014/02/fleming-tv-series-episode-1-historical-accuracy/ 

 

 

I interviewed Nicholas Rankin for a piece on Ian Fleming's commando unit in World War II in Counterterrrorism magazine.

 

You can read the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2011/11/look-back-at-30-assault-unit-british.html

 

You can also read a piece on Fleming film biographies at the James Bond web site MI6 via the below link:

 

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/history_fleming_on_film.php3?t=&s=&id=03437 

 

 

And you can also read my Crime Beat column on Ian Fleming and James Bond via the below link:

 

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/06/casino-royale-revisited-film-that.html  

Local Connection: Ian Fleming's Character James Bond Was Named After A Bird Scientist Who Worked At Philly's Academy Of Natural Sciences

Jon Caroulis at phillymag.com offers a piece on the man Ian Fleming "stole" his name from for his iconic fictional character, James Bond.

If you watch tonight’s BBC in America production of Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond, here’s one fact the film might omit: Ian Fleming named his master spy after a Philadelphia bird scientist who spent most of his career at Philly’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Here’s what we know about him:

The original “James Bond grew up on the Main Line, was educated in England and eventually lived in Chestnut Hill,” says Academy Senior Fellow Robert Peck, who got to known Bond during the final decades of his life.
     
Bond worked at the Academy from the 1920s up to his death in 1989. He was one of many ornithologists who contributed specimens from the Caribbean to the institution’s extensive bird collection. Bond even wrote a book on the region, Birds of the West Indies (1936), which is what caught Fleming’s attention when he began writing Casino Royale.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.phillymag.com/ticket/2014/01/29/fun-fact-james-bond-named-bird-scientist-worked-phillys-academy-natural-sciences/?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EDIT:%20Ticket%20(Weekender)&utm_content=

You can also read an earlier post on Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/01/tonight-on-bbc-america-fleming-man-who.html

Tonight On BBC America, "Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond

Tonight On BBC America is the first part of a four-part series on the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming.

There’s no questioning the iconic status of the man they call 007, but before his thrilling adventures hit the page or screen, they were experienced first-hand by author-to-be, Ian Fleming. Stylish and explosive – Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond tells the fascinating story of the man whose own life and escapades were the inspiration for one of the most iconic figures in modern literature – James Bond.

The new original four-part drama stars Dominic Cooper (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) as Fleming, a charming and sophisticated maverick, whose pleasure-seeking life was turned around by WWII and led to the creation of the greatest spy the world has ever known. Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond premieres Wednesday, January 29, 10:00pm ET/PT as part of BBC AMERICA’s Dramaville.

You can read the rest of the piece and learn more about the series via the below link:

http://www.bbcamerica.com/fleming/about-the-show/

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Ian Fleming via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/06/casino-royale-revisited-film-that.html

And you can read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on Fleming's war-time experience as a naval intelligence officer via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2011/11/look-back-at-30-assault-unit-british.html

Note: As a Fleming aficionado since I was a teenager, I'm thankful that the BBC is offering a mini-series on the life of Ian Fleming. Fleming, a journalist, naval intelligence officer, world-traveler and thriller writer, led a fascinating life.

But, from I've read, the TV program spends a bit more time on Fleming's odd sexual practices than I'd care to see, and they fictionalize bits, such as his having fist fights with Nazis.

Also, Dominic Cooper looks nothing like Ian Fleming (Fleming's WWII photo appears above).

Back in the 1980s, Charles Dance, who does resemble Fleming, portrayed the author in a good film bio called Goldeneye.