Interview With 'Fleming' Actor Dominic Cooper

The James Bond web site MI6 offers a video interview with Dominic Cooper, the actor who is portraying James Bond creator Ian Fleming in an upcoming film bio on Sky TV in the U.K. and BBC America in the USA.

You can watch the video via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/movies_fleming_miniseries_dominic_cooper_interview.php3?t=&s=&id=03606

 

Note: The top photo shows Dominic Cooper as Ian Fleming. The above photo shows Ian Fleming as a British naval intelligence officer in World War II.  

Video Interview: William Boyd On Bond

The James Bond web page MI6 offers a video interview with William Boyd, the author of a new continuation novel featuring Ian Fleming's iconic character James Bond.

In this first of a three part video, author William Boyd talks about reading Ian Fleming's novels in his youth and how he has delved deep in to the life of James Bond in order to pen the continuation novel 'Solo'.

He also comments that as a continuation author he is writing his own novel within the framework, rather than a pastiche of Ian Fleming's style - a stinging put down of exactly how Sebastian Faulks approached his top selling but poorly reviewed 'Devil May Care'.
 You can watch the first video via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=11087

And you can watch parts two and three of the video interview with William Boyd via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=11096&t=mi6&s=news  

And you can read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/08/my-philadelphia-inquirer-review-of_31.html

Interview With John Pearson, The Author Of 'James Bond: The Authorized Biography'

David Leigh at MI6, the James Bond website, not the British intelligence agency, offers an interview with John Pearson, the author of  James Bond: The Authorized Biography.

How did the James Bond biography come about? Prior to writing it I know you’d already written Ian Fleming’s biography, did you come up with the idea or were you approached to write it?

What it came from really once I’d got the idea of doing it, actually I think it was someone most unlikely, it was Lord Longford of all people, he was in charge of the publishers Sedgwick and Jackson, it was he I think who had the idea, because after the authorised life of Ian he said “why don’t you do the life of Bond?” and it made a sort of sense because, and this is the hub of the book, my theory is that Bond was Ian’s alta ego, he was the self who he invented almost as a fantasy self to supply the various things that were lacking in his own life.

... and after the war he told his friend Robert Harling, who was a chap I used to know on the Sunday Times, after he’d been out on the Normandy beaches with 30 Assault Unit which he’d created, that after the war he’d write the spy story to end all spy stories, and of course he did. And it was rather incredible that he did, lots of people say this sort of thing but they never do it. But what I did find once I started writing it, I did get rather carried away by it and I felt I knew Bond very well because I’d known Ian and it was rather an uncanny feeling. I devised this idea that switching the books round that James Bond was the real character and that the books that Ian wrote of him were a cover for him and that he was asked to write them to convince SMERSH and the Russians that actually Bond didn’t exist at all. It seemed quite a useful gimmick and one could produce this book on the strength of it.

 

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

 

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/interview_john_pearson.php3?t=&s=&id=03461 

The James Bond Film 'The Living Daylights' Is 25 Years Old Today

The web site MI6 reports that the James Bond film, The Living Daylights is 25-years old today.

Timothy Dalton's 007 debut in "The Living Daylights" was released in the UK on 29th July 1987.

Dalton brought a harder, grittier James Bond to the silver screen  

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

http://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=10270&t=mi6&s=news

You can also read an earlier post on Timothy Dalton and The Living Daylights via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2012/06/look-back-at-james-bond-film-living.html   

Ian Fleming's Wartime Naval Jacket Sold At Auction

MI6, the James Bond web site, not the British Secret Intelligence Service, offers coverage of the auction sale of Ian Fleming's British Royal Navy jacket.

He wore the jacket (seen above) aboard a British warship during the Dieppe Raid in World War II.

At the outbreak of war Ian Fleming joined the Naval Intelligence Division, where he was quickly promoted from lieutenant to commander. He liaised on behalf of the director of naval intelligence with the other secret services. One of few people given access to Ultra intelligence, he was responsible for the navy's input into anti-German black propaganda" (ODNB). Primarily based at the Admiralty's Room 39, Fleming accompanied the allied troops as an observer on the "Dieppe Raid", an assault on the German held port carried out on 19 August, 1942.

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

http://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=9822&t=mi6&s=news

You can also read my magazine piece on Ian Fleming and his creation of the World War II intelligence-commando group 30 Assault Unit via the below link:

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

007 is 49: Dr No And James Bond Burst On The Silver Screen In 1962

MI6, the James Bond web site, not the British Secret Intelligence Service, offers a look back at the film premiere of Dr No 49 years ago.

October 5th is the cinematic James Bond's birthday, as it was on this day in 1962 that 007 burst on to the silver screen in "Dr No" in cinemas across the UK. But the progress of James Bond from the printed page of Ian Fleming's adventures to the big screen EON Productions movies was not an easy passage.

Ian Fleming, seen in the above photo with Sean Connery on the set of Dr No, did not initially like the actor as his Commander Bond and he told a colleague that he found the film to be "Dreadful. Simply dreadful."

He later came to like Sean Connery and he revised his view of Dr No, stating that while his readers might be dissappointed, those who have not read the novel will think Dr No was a "wonderful film."

Ian Fleming lived to see the film version of From Russia With Love and visited the set of Goldfinger, but he died before Goldfinger was released.

You cna read the rest of the Mi6 piece via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/dn_49th.php3?t=&s=&id=02968

You can also read MI6's coverage of the production of the film via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/movies/dn_production.php3?t=mi6&s=dn