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  

Ted Jeal's Faber Podcast With Nicholas Rankin, Author Of Ian Fleming's Commandos

The British publisher Faber and Faber offers a podcast of Ted Jeal's interesting interview with Nicholas Rankin, the author of a new book on Ian Fleming's World War II commando group, the 30 Assault Unit.

You can listen to the podcast via the below link:

http://podularity.com/wp-content/audio/rankin%20ian%20flemings%20commandos.mp3

You can also watch a brief video of Rankin explaining his book via the below link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uBOGbFx1mY

As I've noted here before, I also interviewed Nicholas Rankin for a piece on Ian Fleming for Counterterrorism magazine. I also interviewed Craig Cabell, the author of a previous book on Ian Fleming's wartime commandos, The History of the 30 Assault Unit: Ian Fleming's Red Indians (Pen & Sword), for the magazine article.

I'll post the magazine piece here when it comes out.

You can read my earlier interview with Craig Cabell at GreatHistory.com via the below links:

http://greathistory.com/the-secret-war-of-james-bonds-creator-ian-fleming.htm

http://greathistory.com/the-secret-war-of-james-bonds-creator-part-2.htm

Nicholas Rankin On Ian Fleming's World War II Commandos, The 30 Assault Unit

The British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a Q & A with Nicholas Rankin, author of Ian Fleming's Commandos (Oxford University Press).

The new book tells of Fleming's World War II experiences and his creation of an intelligence-commando group, the 30 Assault Unit.

Royal Navy Commander Ian Fleming is seen in the above photo in Room 39 of the British Naval Intelligence Division.

We all know Ian Fleming as the author of the James Bond fantasy spy novels of the 1950s and early sixties. But what is striking is just how deeply involved he was in real war-time intelligence, as Commander Ian Fleming RNVR. He worked closely with Britain's two Directors of Naval Intelligence throughout the Second World War from 1939 to 1945. '17 (F)' - as he appears in the Naval Intelligence files and dockets - was a man who knew many secrets. He was Naval Intelligence's liaison with 'C', the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, and also with the sabotage and resistance organisation, SOE, the Special Operations Executive. He knew the people who ran double agents and deceptions in the Security Service, MI5. He regularly visited Bletchley Park, the Government Code and Cypher School that cracked enemy secret messages, and he knew the American General Bill Donovan who founded the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA. So the Bond fictions are grounded in genuine reality.

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

http://my.maillife.co.uk/news/43/qa-with-author-nicholas-rankin

I also interviewed Nicholas Rankin for an article on Ian Fleming and his commando group for the next issue of Counterterrorism magazine.

The piece will also include my interview with Craig Cabell. Cabell is the author of a previous book on Fleming and his commandos called the The History of the 30 Assault Unit: Ian Fleming's Red Indians (Pen & Sword).

I'll post my piece here when it comes out.

Before James Bond: A New Book On Ian Fleming's World War II Commandos

MI6 - the James Bond web site, not the British Secret Intelligence Service - announced the publication of a new book about Ian Fleming's wartime experiences in British Naval Intelligence and his creation of an elite group of naval intelligence-commandos called the 30 Assault Unit.

You can read the MI6 piece on Nicholas Rankin's Ian Fleming's Commandos (Faber & Faber) via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/literature_ian_flemings_commandos.php3?t=&s=&id=02937

I interviewed Craig Cabell, the author of a previous book on Ian Fleming and the 30 Assault Unit called Ian Fleming's Secret War (Sword & Shield).

You can read my GreatHistory.com interview via the below links:

http://greathistory.com/the-secret-war-of-james-bonds-creator-ian-fleming.htm

http://greathistory.com/the-secret-war-of-james-bonds-creator-part-2.htm

You can also read my piece on Ian Fleming and the James Bond phenomenon via the below link:

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