Does James Bond eat Jell-O? Historical menu collection provides food for thought

Can the James Bond novels be used as historical documents, a reliable source of information on people, places, and events? Almost certainly, given Ian Fleming’s journalistic background and his determination to get factual details right. Take the food represented in the novels as an example. I was recently alerted to the existence of ‘What’s on the Menu’, an online collection of historical menus, largely of American restaurants, hosted by the New York Public Library (NYPL). One can search by restaurant, meal or food type, and decade or year, and even download the entire dataset. Browsing through the vast collection, it’s clear that the meals Bond eats or considers during his American adventures accurately reflect what was served and consumed at the time.
 

Cover of 1958 menu from Voisin. Image: NYPL 'What's on the Menu' collection

For instance, in Diamonds are Forever (1956), we read that Bond has a meal of two vodka martinis, Oeufs Benedict and strawberries at Voisin’s in New York. One of the menus available in the NYPL collection is a lunchtime menu from Voisin’s (closed Mondays) dating to 1958. The menu doesn’t offer eggs Benedict as such, but it does list Oeuf Poché à la Reine (priced at $2.50). Berries in season with cream (presumably including strawberries if available) are also listed and would have cost Bond $1.75. The menu doesn’t show drinks, but a martini from the Hotel Astor (where Bond stays in Diamonds are Forever) cost 90 cents. 

I’ve tended to think of Bond’s choice of camembert, which Bond orders on the train to Jacksonville in Live and Let Die (1954), as being somewhat incongruous. However, browsing through contemporary menus, it’s clear that the cheese was a standard option in American restaurants. Bond regards domestic camembert as ‘one of the most welcome surprises on American menus.’ It was a surprise to me too: from low-price diners to fancy restaurants, it seems that there aren’t many restaurants where it wasn’t available. 

Another curiosity for me is the fact that the only meals for which prices are given in the Bond books are chicken dinners. At Sugar Ray’s in New York in Live and Let Die, Bond notes that the special fried chicken dinner cost $3.75. In an eatery near his hotel in Saratoga Springs in Diamonds are Forever, Bond orders a chicken dinner for $2.80. Looking through the menus, the prices are pretty accurate, although Sugar Ray’s appears to be on the pricier side. Perhaps its special was something very special.  

For contemporary British readers, a chicken dinner would have conjured up images of roast chicken served with roast potatoes, stuffing and vegetables and smothered in gravy, and was what people could win at village fetes and association raffles. Something approaching an English-style roast dinner was of course available in America. A menu dated to 1958 from Chickland, a chicken restaurant based in Massachusetts, lists among its many items a ‘roast turkey dinner’, comprising turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables and gravy. But, as we know from Sugar Ray’s, a chicken dinner could also involve fried chicken. Chickland naturally also served several fried chicken specials, such as the ‘General Lee Special’, comprising southern fried chicken, French fired potatoes and, to follow, ice-cream and coffee, all for $2.50. The celebrated Knotts Berry Farm restaurant in California offered a fried chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy, as well as a pudding and drink, for $2.25 in 1956 [menu not in the collection].
 

Cover of 1958 menu from Chickland restaurant. Image: NYPL 'What's on the Menu' collection

Interestingly, Bond declines another opportunity to have fried chicken. He rejects the chicken ‘French fried to a golden brown, served disjointed’, listed on the menu on the train to Jacksonville, as ‘eyewash’.

Puddings served with chicken dinners, incidentally, could include fruit pie, ice-cream, a hot biscuit or Jell-O. I wonder which one Bond had with his chicken dinner in Saratoga Springs. (My bet’s on ice-cream.)   

The NYPL’s ‘What’s on the Menu’ collection is a treasure trove of information on dining and food culture mainly in the US from the 19th century to the present day. For the Bond aficionado, the resource provides useful background and context to Bond’s American adventures. The collection isn’t comprehensive; so far, the collection does not include many restaurants and hotels that Bond frequents and even fewer menus from those establishments that date to the year of publication. However, there is more than enough information from contemporaneous menus to show that Bond’s food choices (probably based on Fleming’s own experiences) accurately reflect the cultural environment around him. Time to go back to the online resource for a second helping!

On location: James Bond's New York

A recent trip to New York to speak at a conference at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World gave me the chance to look up a few of the locations mentioned in Live and Let Die, Diamonds are Forever and ‘007 in New York’ and experience something of James Bond’s adventures in the city.

Arriving into JFK (formerly Idlewild), I didn’t quite get the red-carpet treatment that Bond received (LALD, chapter 1), but I beat the worst of the queues and got through passport control in less than half an hour. I had been a bit worried, because I reached the passport control booth without having filled out the customs declaration form (I had no pen), but the passport control officer kindly lent me a pen so that I could fill in the form then and there (I was afraid he would send me to the back of the by now very long line), which I reckon is as red a carpet as one is likely to get these days.  

I jumped into a taxi and headed towards downtown Manhattan via the Van Wyck Expressway and the Triborough Bridge, following Bond’s routes into the city in Live and Let Die and ‘007 in New York’. Alas, staying at the St Regis was out of the question, but my first New York breakfast – in a diner on Broadway – was inspired by Bond’s breakfast in that hotel. I ordered coffee, orange juice, scrambled eggs, bacon, and rye toast, and had to make do with grape jelly, rather than marmalade. The eggs and bacon, incidentally, arrived with fried potatoes, which I hadn’t ordered, but seem to come as standard. My eggs Benedict that I had the next morning were also served with fried potatoes.
 

Scrambled eggs and bacon, US style

Conference business didn’t give me a lot of time for sightseeing, but I took the opportunity of a few spare hours in the morning of my second day in New York to find 33 East 65th Street, located in the city’s Upper East Side just off Madison Avenue; the ground floor and adjoining garage doubled for the Oh Cult Voodoo Shop in the film of Live and Let Die.

Oh Cult Voodoo Shop

With conference proceedings over by my third and final day in New York, I was at last able to do some proper exploring. Armed with copies of the relevant novels and a print-out of a map of Bond locations created by Bond Maps (if you haven’t already done so, I urge you to check out Matt Bunnell’s excellent Google map and blog), I rode the Subway to Times Square-42nd Street and began my walking tour. 

I couldn’t see everything, but I visited the principal sites. Sardi’s, the restaurant in which Felix Leiter introduces Bond to Brizzola in in Diamonds are Forever (chapter 8), is still there on West 44th Street in the heart of New York’s theatre district, but unfortunately, Brizzola is no longer on the menu.
 

Sardi's

The restaurant is famous for its caricatures of its famous patrons, and I could see that James Bond had actually visited – a portrait of Daniel Craig was hanging in the window.
  

Daniel Craig in the window of Sardi's

A few steps away, on West 45th Street, is the site of the Hotel Astor, where Bond stays in Diamonds are Forever and ‘007 in New York’. The hotel is no longer there – the site is now taken up by One Astor Plaza – but the Marriot Marquis hotel next door provides an alternative place to stay. I walked along to 6th Avenue and headed to the site of House of Diamonds on West 46th Street. The area remains an important diamond centre, and diamond stores line this and neighbouring streets.

I walked up 5th Avenue (just as Bond does in Live and Let Die), and turned into West 52nd Street and found 21 Club, the bar and restaurant where Bond and Tiffany Case dine in Diamonds are Forever and where Bond considers having lunch in ‘007 in New York’. The restaurant, nestled somewhat incongruously between modern office blocks, was closed for refurbishment, so unfortunately, I couldn’t follow Bond and indulge in a martini or stinger.
 

21 Club

My next stop was the St Regis on East 55th Street, Bond’s hotel in Live and Let Die. The hotel’s King Cole Bar, is curiously not mentioned in the book, but was a favourite haunt of Ian Fleming’s. Opposite the hotel, I spotted another place with a Bondian connection – a branch of Crockett & Jones, bootmaker to James Bond in the film Spectre.
  

The St Regis hotel

I saved the best till last for my final stop – the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal. In ‘007 in New York’, James Bond considers the restaurant’s oyster stew (with crackers and Miller High Life beer) to be the best meal in New York, echoing Fleming’s own view, expressed in Thrilling Cities, that oyster stew is perhaps the only dish ‘that has maintained its integrity in the New York’ of his experience.

The Oyster Bar, Grand Central Terminal. (The youth in the corner hasn't been a naughty boy, but is listening to the station's famous whispering walls.)

Naturally, I ordered the dish, and I wouldn’t disagree that it is superb. (A recipe for oyster stew inspired by the Oyster Bar version can be found in my James Bond cookbook, Licence to Cook.) Miller High Life is no longer available in the restaurant, so I had a Brooklyn beer, which is more like an English ale, instead.
 

Oyster stew from the Oyster Bar

I was pleased to see a little nod to James Bond in the oyster bar – the Vesper martini was on the menu.

The Oyster Bar's Vesper

Then it was straight into a taxi and back to the airport. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in New York, and I would like to go back. My Bond sightseeing was a whistle-stop tour, and there is plenty more to see. Still, it was thrilling to see just some of the Bond locations, and the visit has helped me to picture the scenes in the books much more clearly.

On re-reading Live and Let Die

Christmas brought me the set of three Bond novels – Casino Royale, Goldfinger and Live and Let Die – published by Vintage Classics. The last I was particularly keen on reading. Not only does it have an excellent introduction by John Cork (as do they all), but the edition comprised a never-before published version of the text.

As the introductory note to the text states, the Vintage Classics edition is a combination of the standard UK edition and the US edition. Fleming’s original American publisher, Macmillan, made several changes to the UK edition, with Fleming’s approval, mainly relating to the American scenes, descriptions and language. For this Vintage Classics edition, the two original editions were compared and combined, and what could be described as a definitive edition has been produced.

The most obvious difference between this edition and the UK edition is that chapter 5, perhaps the most problematic part of the book (to say the least), is shorn of the lengthy conversation at Sugar Ray’s between a black couple that Bond and Leiter listen into. The chapter is also given its US title, Seventh Avenue. Along with other, smaller, changes, this gives the book a fresh, pacier, feel, and makes the reading experience very much less uncomfortable. 

Some other thoughts came to mind as I was reading the book. Superficially, the film version of the book diverges significantly from the book, but a surprising amount of the book survives to lesser or greater extents in the film. Bloody Morgan’s treasure is replaced by drugs, but the book’s essential plot elements – voodoo, the Harlem setting, the train journey, Mr Big’s cave and his network of agents, Bond’s capture, the disappearing table in the bar, sharks, the mine that destroys Mr Big’s operation, Solitaire and Bond being tied up together at the denouement of the book, and so on – are also on the screen. Some of these elements were, of course, picked up again and filmed more faithfully for For Your Eyes Only and Licence to Kill, but there’s more of the book in the film than one may think. 

I was reminded of some of the quite ordinary things Bond does in this novel. Eating cornflakes is one. Catching a bus is another. It’s almost impossible to imagine Bond waiting at the bus stop, boarding the bus, fiddling with change, buying a ticket, looking for a spare seat, and keeping an eye on the stops. Would any continuation Bond novelist dare have Bond catch a bus? Probably not, and if they did, they’d risk writing a parody in a similar vein to Sebastian Faulks’ piece in his Pistache volume that describes Bond in a supermarket. The episode is reminder that Fleming could make even the most ordinary acts sophisticated and exciting (the New York setting helps), and that he created a hero that his readers could relate to. Bond may not quite be one of us, but he’s far from the upper-class, ‘clubland’ hero of the earlier 20th century. I wouldn’t mind betting that Fleming took the same bus journey. There is a bus ride in the film version, but the use of the bus is far from being of an ordinary nature. 

It is worth noting, too, that Live and Let Die contains the first use in a Bond book of the phrase, ‘all the time in the world’. Bond tells Solitaire, ‘When the time comes I want to be alone with you, with all the time in the world.’ Fleming was evidently much taken with the phrase. It’s not only used in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, appearing in the final chapter and serving as that chapter’s title, but is used twice in Diamonds are Forever: ‘But now there was all the time in the world’, and ‘Bond suddenly felt they had all the time in the world.’ So associated is the phrase with Bond that it would be my choice for the title of the next Bond film, although the fact that it has already been used in a film title – being the sub-title to Spy Kids 4 – might rule its use out.

A final point to make is that the Soviet connection in Live and Let Die seems very weak. As John Cork points out, at no point does Mr Big spout Soviet ideology, nor does he mention the Soviets in respect of his operations. Indeed, the Soviet angle is barely mentioned again after M’s briefing. One wonders why Mr Big would need the Soviets at all. His operation is self-financing, and he’s in control of a business and crime empire. Ian Fleming could be considered as much a crime fiction writer as a spy fiction writer, and Live and Let Die certainly joins Diamonds are Forever, Goldfinger, The Spy who Loved Me, and the short story 'Risico' in the crime category.

Are any more Vintage Classics editions of the Bond novels planned? I hope so!

Where is James Bond's big gun?

The poster for Live and Let Die, created by Robert McGinnis, is iconic and a classic piece of Bond art, but there’s something on the poster that’s been puzzling me. In the centre of the artwork, a woman sits on top of the barrel of a field gun or anti-aircraft gun, which is being fired by James Bond.

I’ve watched Live and Let Die countless times, but I can’t remember ever seeing James Bond wield a gun of that sort. Unless it’s a case of blink and you miss it, the gun doesn’t appear in the film. What’s surprising, though, is quite how central the image is to the publicity of the film.

Apart from the poster, a large image of the gun is shown in the gatefold of the soundtrack album. Interestingly, the image here is a photograph. This rules out artistic licence, and means that Roger Moore filmed a scene featuring the gun or posed with it. It’s reasonable to conclude that the gun was used for publicity only or the scene ended on the cutting-room floor.

If the latter, the photograph may offer a clue about the gun’s intended placement in the film. Roger Moore is shown wearing a pale open-necked shirt, possibly the same shirt he wears for his scenes in Mr Big’s poppy field. Had Mr Big installed the gun in the poppy field to protect his crop? Perhaps there was a scene in which Bond discovers the gun and uses it to destroy the helicopter that’s attacking him. (That's another puzzler - what happens to the helicopter?)

The gun itself is shown in more detail in the photograph. To me, it looks like a Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun, but I haven’t been able to identify it precisely. A photograph in the US edition of Roger Moore’s Live and Let Die diary shows Roger Moore being shown how to use a gun mounted on a US Coast Guard boat. It's hard to tell, but it could be the same gun as that in the poster (Roger Moore is also wearing a pale open-necked shirt), in which case, the photograph on the soundtrack album would appear to be a publicity shot.

If anyone knows more about James Bond’s missing gun, then post a comment at the end of this post. I’ll be glad to hear from you.

Sir Roger Moore - an appreciation

Sir Roger Moore in 1973 (By Allan Warren (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Sir Roger Moore was the James Bond of a generation. He was the James Bond of my generation. Some of my earliest Bond-related memories are of Roger Moore's Bond films, and unwittingly, he was responsible for my becoming a Bond fan. With his death, which was announced today, it's as if I've lost a childhood friend.

I grew up with Roger Moore's Bond in more ways than one. Live and Let Die, his first Bond film, was released in the same year that I was born. My earliest memory of Bond is watching Goldfinger on television, but I also have an early memory of The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore's third and best film as 007. The Egypt-set scenes particularly stick in the mind. Among my toys in my later years was, naturally, an Corgi Aston Martin DB5, but I also treasured my Lotus Esprit and Stromberg helicopter from The Spy Who Loved Me. When I was around 10 or 11, I began to have aspirations to be a cartoonist (which stayed with me for a while, but thankfully faded as the rejection slips started arriving in quantity). Anyway, I'd write and draw my own James Bond comic strip, and of course it was Roger Moore's Bond that I'd depict. Conversations with my schoolmates always eventually got round to Bond. Even now, I remember the lengthy discussions I had about tarot cards in Live and Let Die and the lyrics to the title song of A View to a Kill. 

Goldfinger set the Bond formula, but for me, The Spy Who Loved Me is every bit as archetypal. The film redefined the pre-title sequence; its triumphant ski-jump stunt brought well-deserved applause from cinema-goers and became the benchmark for every pre-title sequence that followed. Subsequent pre-title sequences have been bigger, but not necessarily better.

The Spy Who Loved Me contains plenty of Roger Moore's trademark charm and saucy seaside-postcard humour ('Sorry, something came up'), and I love it. But it also has its serious moments, and Roger Moore was equally adept at those. Watch the moment when he reveals to Anya that he killed her lover, himself a Russian agent, and tell me he can't play it straight.

Later films perhaps saw him sharing more screen time with his stunt double, but they remain perfect entertainment. Octopussy is another case where Roger Moore moved effortlessly between humour and seriousness. Anyone who can draw edge-of-your-seat tension from a scene while wearing a clown suit must be a brilliant actor.

Roger Moore was famously self-deprecating about his acting talent, and he often said that the only film in which he really flexed his acting muscles was The Man Who Haunted Himself. To my shame I've never seen the film, though I have seen Gold, his 1974 film based on a Wilbur Smith novel, where we perhaps see a similar side of him. That's not to dismiss the Bond films in any way. To make the Bond films look as good as they do takes real skill and dedication, and that's what Roger Moore had in abundance. 

I was lucky enough to have seen Roger Moore twice on stage, and was thrilled to have met him – sort of – after one of the shows for an autograph. They say never meet your heroes, but Roger Moore is one hero I would gladly have spent more time with.

So let me raise a vodka martini, shaken but not stirred (not something he ever stipulated himself, curiously), and thank Sir Roger Moore for introducing me to Bond, entertaining me enormously over the years, and keeping the British end up.

James Bond in a Caribbean mystery

With Young Bond author Charlie Higson on writing duties, it was inevitable that ITV's 2013 adaptation of Agatha Christie's A Caribbean Mystery should include a few nods to James Bond. I was reminded of these when the drama was repeated recently on ITV3.

The title card of ITV's adaptation of A Caribbean Mystery

In the story, amateur sleuth Miss Marple is holidaying on an unnamed Caribbean island. As ever, murder follows in her wake, the first victim among Miss Marple's fellow hotel guests being a retired major who realises that a serial killer is in their midst. Miss Marple is soon on the case.

Voodoo plays a role in the plot, and we see performers put on a Voodoo-inspired show for the hotel guests, much like the entertainment that greets James Bond's arrival in San Monique in Live and Let Die.

However, it is the Voodoo scenes at the end (or indeed in the pre-titles sequence) of Live and Let Die that appear to be referenced more closely. One of the performers carries a snake with which he playfully threatens the major. He also wears headgear made out of animal skin, and has white paint on the upper part of his face and black paint on his nose and around his eyes to create the appearance of a skull.
 

A Caribbean Mystery: The major is confronted by a Voodoo performer and a snake

The costume is presumably fairly typical of Voodoo ceremonies, but the performer nevertheless brings to mind the high priest (or whatever he is) in Live and Let Die, who wears a goat-skin headdress and threatens Solitaire with a snake, while his make-up replicates that worn by Baron Samedi.
 

Scenes from the Voodoo ceremony in Live and Let Die

There is another allusion to Live and Let Die when we see a close-up of the face of hotel owner Molly Kendall (who believes herself responsible for the series of murders), which turns into a flaming skull. This recalls Maurice Binder's titles in Live and Let Die, in which a flaming skull is a prominent motif.

Flaming skulls in A Caribbean Mystery (top) and Live and Let Die

More generally, the background music for A Caribbean Mystery incorporates Bondian notes and phrases, especially whenever the handsome hotel waiter, Errol (who knows how to mix a cocktail), appears on the scene.
 

Errol (Kingsley Ben-Adir) in A Caribbean Mystery

A cameo appearance of Charlie Higson, however, provides a much more obvious nod to James Bond. He plays an ornithologist who visits the hotel to give a lecture on birds. His name? James Bond, author of Birds of the West Indies.
 

The ornithologist James Bond, as played by Charlie Higson in A Caribbean Mystery

By coincidence, Ian Fleming (played by Jeremy Crutchley) is in the audience. He tells Miss Marple that he has been working on a novel (the events of the mystery must date before 1953), but he is stuck for the name of his hero. When James Bond introduces himself with the words "My name is Bond, James Bond", inspiration strikes. (James Bond was in fact named after the ornithologist, though not quite in the manner depicted!) 

Ian Fleming (Jeremy Crutchley) in A Caribbean Mystery

Interestingly, James Bond (the ornithologist) is introduced as a representative of the Audubon Society, the American bird protection society that Fleming mentions in Dr No. That novel gets another nod when James Bond points out that the island is rich in guano; Ian Fleming tells a puzzled Miss Marple that guano is bird droppings.

The 2013 adaptation of A Caribbean Mystery is very enjoyable tale of murder and intrigue, and the James Bond references are an added bonus. Well worth watching.

Shades of Live and Let Die in the Flashman Papers?

There are only a few authors I return to time and again. Ian Fleming is naturally one, PG Wodehouse another. A third is George MacDonald Fraser. I can't remember how many times I've read the Flashman Papers, George MacDonald Fraser's series of adventures featuring Harry Flashman, a Victorian cad, scoundrel, poltroon and undeserving hero, but the novels, presented in the form of Flashman's memoirs, are becoming as dog-eared and well-thumbed as my Bond books.

I was re-reading the tenth volume in the series – Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (1994), in which Flashman reluctantly joins John Brown and takes part in the infamous raid at Harper's Ferry in 1859 that presaged the American Civil War – and was struck by a number of similarities between the book and the novel of Live and Let Die (1954).

For example, after a remarkable series of events, Flashman finds himself in Washington. Escaping from an organisation keen for him to join John Brown, Flashman hails a cab and is invited in by a mysterious woman already occupying it. Flashman tells her he's from Canada, to which the woman replies 'uh-huh'. Flashman remarks in his memoirs that uh-huh “is the most expressive word in the American language.” This brought to mind Felix Leiter's advice to James Bond in Live and Let Die that “you can get through any American conversation with 'yeah', 'nope' and 'sure'.”

While in New York, Flashman meets and is arrested by Allan Pinkerton, who founded his famous detective agency in 1852-3. (Felix Leiter would become a Pinkerton's agent in Diamonds are Forever.) In his cell, Flashman consumes a “disgusting luncheon consisting of a cake of fried chopped beef smothered in onions and train oil.” Flashman's first experience of a hamburger is rather different to Bond's. He describes his meal of “flat beef Hamburgers, medium-rare” (among other items) as “American cooking at its rare best.”

Earlier, while still in Washington, Flashman is dining in a restaurant and eavesdrops on the conversations of fellow diners. One conversation gives us a flavour of the political background in 1859, and George MacDonald Fraser, through his writing, attempts to convey the accents and dialects that Flashman is likely to have heard. Inevitably, this reminded me of Bond and Leiter in Sugar Ray's in Harlem, where they listen to a couple's conversation so that Bond can get a feel of the accent and the colloquialisms. (Today, the passage makes rather uncomfortable reading, but Fleming was no doubt well intentioned.)

It also occurred to me that both Live and Let Die and Flashman and the Angel of the Lord feature secret organisations that have spies everywhere to keep tabs on the movements of the books' respective heroes. Mr Big has his Big Switchboard in the former, and while the latter introduces us to a secret network sympathetic to the southern states.

Live and Let Die and Flashman and the Angel of the Lord are very different novels, and the similarities may well be completely coincidental. But George MacDonald Fraser did, of course, co-write the screenplay of Octopussy, and his comic historical novel, The Reavers (2007), is packed with Bond references (the hero of the novel is the spy, Archie Noble, who, as head of Station B for Border, is ‘licensed to slay’, and a ‘double-nought operative'). It is not impossible that as a Bond aficionado, George MacDonald Fraser alluded to the Bond books in some of his other work. 

Ian Fleming and The Traveller's Tree

One of the most thrilling – and chilling – aspects of Live and Let Die, when I read it for the first time aged 11 or 12, was the description of a voodoo ceremony took from Patrick Leigh Fermor's 1950 book, The Traveller's Tree. At the time, I had never heard of the book, and thought nothing of the extended excerpt. To me, the passage was an essential part of Fleming's novel, adding veracity to the tale and putting me into Bond's shoes; I was learning about voodoo with Bond.

Thinking about it now, it does seem a little odd that Fleming lifted almost verbatim several pages of a celebrated book (in fact, passages from two chapters) that had not long been out before Live and Let Die was published in 1954. Fleming's novel does not suffer unduly for it, but it does leave Fleming open to an accusation of lazy writing.

One can't imagine today's editors being so indulgent towards their authors, but the use of the extract does reflect Fleming's love of books and admiration for, and almost a deference to, experts and writers. Fleming may also have been motivated by a desire to thank Patrick Leigh Fermor, known as Paddy, for the mention Paddy gave him in The Traveller's Tree. (Incidentally, Fleming's footnote in Live and Let Die that gives the publisher and price of the volume is absent from current editions.)

As source material and part of Bond's library, The Traveller's Tree is firmly part of Bond lore. I was therefore keen to read Artemis Cooper's superb biography of Paddy to learn more about the origins of the book.

The idea for the book emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War, in which Paddy, serving with the Intelligence Corps and then the Special Operations Executive, fought alongside the resistance in Crete (one of his spectacular achievements was the kidnapping of General Kriepe, the commander of German forces on the island). Among Paddy's comrades-in-arms was Costa Achillopoulos. In 1947, Costa was commissioned to produce a book of photographs of the Caribbean, and he asked Paddy to accompany him and write the text for the book and as many spin-off magazine articles as possible.

Once in the Caribbean, Paddy was soon to encounter its diversity and exoticism, and the deprivation among many of its inhabitants (he discovered that slavery continued to cast a long shadow). While in Jamaica, he also paid a visit to Ian Fleming's home, Goldeneye, being a close friend of Ann Fleming. Paddy witnessed the voodoo ceremony which appalled Bond so much in Haiti. Paddy was fascinated by voodoo's admixture of African and Catholic religion and rituals, and saw in its origin, at a time of slavery, a sort of freedom from the harsh reality of the adherents' lives, and a link with their ancestral past.

Paddy travelled to Normandy in 1948 and began to write The Traveller's Tree (the title was Costa's). In the weeks that followed, Paddy moved around France and Italy, usually staying in monasteries where he was able to write without the distraction of convivial company, parties and bright lights, to which he was susceptible. The writing didn't come easily at first – he was overwhelmed by the amount of material he had collected – and at the monastery of Saint-Jean-de-Solesmes resorted to taking benzedrine. But later, in the monastery of San Antonio, near Tivoli, Paddy was particularly productive.

The Traveller's Tree was published in 1950 by John Murray to enthusiastic reviews, and it was awarded the Heinemann Foundation Prize. Artemis Cooper's biography of Paddy is also well worth reading, and gives not just a fascinating account of Paddy's life and the background to The Traveller's Tree, but also an insight into the literary and social scene in which Ian Fleming also moved, if somewhat on the periphery.

References:

Cooper, A, 2012 Patrick Leigh Fermor: An adventure, John Murray
Fermor, P M L, 1950 The Traveller's Tree: A journey through the Caribbean islands, John Murray

The Day of the Dead and other festivals in the Bond films

This week the Spectre production crew moved to Mexico to start filming more key scenes, including part of the film's opening sequence, which, as revealed by an official tweet, will recreate Mexico's famous Day of the Dead festival. 

Filming on #SPECTRE has moved to Mexico City to shoot the opening sequence which will feature the Day of the Dead festival
— James Bond (@007) March 18, 2015

The Bond films have developed something of a tradition of incorporating celebrations and festivals from around the world. Let's look at some examples.

Junkanoo (Thunderball)
The Junkanoo is a street parade of highly decorated floats, percussion-based music and exuberant dancing seen in the Bahamas each year on Boxing Day. James Bond gatecrashes the celebrations in Thunderball when he attempts to lose Fiona and Largo's henchmen, who are in pursuit, in the crowds. Bond is shot in the leg and trails blood, which leads Fiona to the Kiss Kiss Club where Bond is hiding. The tense sequence terminates with one of Bond's best lines in the film series: “Do you mind if my friend sits this one out? She's just dead.” It is said that some of the participants in the Junkanoo decorated their floats with Bond-inspired designs, and Bond's code, 007, can apparently been seen. If so, I have not spotted it yet.

The origins of the festival lies in the late 16th and early 17th century, when plantation owners in Jamaica and the Bahamas gave their slave-workers three days off at Christmas. Festivities developed, and may have included the wearing of costumes and masks and stilt-walking. The Junkanoo eventually died out in Jamaica after the abolition of slavery, but continued in the Bahamas.

The modern festival is celebrated throughout the island, but the biggest celebrations are conducted through the streets of Nassau. The main element of the Junkanoo is a parade, which is populated by thousands of participants organised into 'crews', who compete for cash prizes for best float, costume and mask. The parade, dancing and (goombay) music continue through the night and ends at dawn.

Rio Carnival (Moonraker)The carnival backdrop and its samba soundtrack helps raise the suspense in the scene in Rio de Janeiro where Jaws, clad in an outlandish carnival costume, makes his way down a narrow street towards Manuela, who is transfixed by fear at the approaching threat. As Jaws reaches her and is about to give her the 'kiss of death', revellers tumble out of a bar and sweep Jaws up in their dancing, thus rescuing Manuela.

The Rio Carnival takes place over the five days in February or March before Shrove Tuesday. It has its origins in the 17th century-tradition of estrudos, when the inhabitants of the city would run riot through the streets pelting passers-by with foul substances. These festivities were eventually banned, but not before the wealthier inhabitants had begun to organise masked balls and float parades. Meanwhile, samba schools emerged in the working-class areas of the city and these played an increasingly significant role in the evolution of the pre-Lent festivities.

The modern carnival parade, characterised by extravagant costumes, thousands of dancers, and pulsating rhythms, developed as a competition between the Grupo Especial, or elite samba schools, but carnival-goers can also enjoy street music provided by blocos and bandas, and balls held in hotels and other indoor venues.

Palio di Siena (Quantum of Solace)
James Bond finds himself among the crowds enjoying the horse racing of the palio di Siena as he pursues Mitchell, M's bodyguard who is revealed as working for Quantum. A shot is fired and someone in the crowd is hit, but Bond does not hang around as he continues to give chase with chaos developing around him.

The palio di Siena is held twice a year in July (Palio di Provensano) and August (Palio dell'Assunta), and combines white-knuckle horse racing with religious observation and festivities. It began in the 14th century with horse races around Siena's squares organised by the city's wards or contrade. In the 18th century, the numerous contrade were reduced to seventeen, and it was also decreed that no more than ten contrade could participate in palio. Today, the races are still restricted to ten contrade, whose colours are worn by the bareback riders.

The Day of the Dead (Spectre)

Day of the Dead, Coyoacan (Photo: Christine Zapata Perez)

Mexico's Day of the Dead is a two-day festival held on 1st and 2nd November. It is said to combine Aztec beliefs that the dead returned to visit their loved ones at the end of the harvest season with the Christian (and ultimately pagan) traditions of Halloween and All Souls' Day on 31st October and 1st November, which reached Mexico with the Spanish Conquistadors.

Today's festival is celebrated both in the home as food and drink and prayers are offered to deceased family members and ancestors on make-shift altars, and outside. People's front doors and paths around homes are painted and heavily laden with flowers and food, including Pan de Muerto, the bread of the dead; markets stalls sell edible skulls and ghoulish decorations, and streets are lined with marigold petals, which lead inhabitants to cemeteries, where families hold all-night vigils – and, effectively, picnics of tortillas and other treats – at the graveside. Throughout, there is a street-party atmosphere, characterised by music and much tequila-drinking.

How might the Day of the Dead be seen in Spectre? We will certainly see lots of papier-mâché skeletons (do these inspire the name of the organisation which gives the film its title?), which have become a symbol of the festival. The action may take us to a cemetery, or through bedecked streets and markets. In any case, the Day of the Dead will give the film a macabre backdrop that will be highly redolent of the Voodoo aspects of Live and Let Die, a film which director Sam Mendes has repeatedly referenced.

The use of traditional celebrations and festivals in the Bond films (we could also include, among others, the jazz funerals of New Orleans seen in Live and Let Die, or the bull-fighting shown in On Her Majesty's Secret Service) serve to enhance the spectacle and exoticism of the films, increase the tension and suspense of the scene with the juxtaposition of the celebration and the threat, and at the same time help ground the films in a degree of reality. While EON's tweet revealed something of a spoiler, I cannot wait to see how the events of the opening sequence will show the Day of the Dead.

Reference
World Party: The Rough Guide to the World's Best Festivals, London (2007)

James Bond and the frogmen of World War Two

I've long resigned myself to the fact that the chances of finding a first-edition Fleming at a jumble (or rummage) sale are very remote indeed, certainly since the emergence of Amazon and ebay. But I still go to jumble sales in a hopeful frame of mind, and invariably manage to pick up other items that are of peripheral interest to the world of James Bond. Recently, for example, I acquired a paperback copy of The Frogmen: The Story of the Wartime Underwater Operators (Pan, 1950), by T J Waldron and James Gleeson. Ian Fleming drew on the exploits of wartime divers and frogmen when describing James Bond's exciting underwater episodes in Live and Let Die (1954) and Thunderball (1960), and so I bought the book to find out more.

In chapter 10 of Thunderball, Fleming tells us that SPECTRE used a “two-men underwater chariot identical with those used by the Italians during the war” to tow a sled to transport the captured atomic weapons from the submerged Vindicator aircraft. Later, in chapter 23, as he leads a unit of US submariners in an underwater battle against Largo's men, Bond encounters Largo sitting astride the chariot.

As The Frogmen reveals, the Italians were the pioneers of the chariot when engaging in underwater sabotage, and it was only when Italian 'charioteers' in 1941 successfully attacked the Denbydale and other British ships in the Mediterranean that Britain first became aware of this special means of warfare.

The Italian chariot, or human torpedo, was a 22 foot-long cigar-shaped craft that incorporated a detachable warhead containing 500lb of explosives. Two men sat astride the chariot, and, by means of a battery-powered propeller and compressed-air tanks to regulate depth, they moved slowly toward the target ship. Once there, the frogmen fixed lines across the ship's hull, tied the warhead to the lines, released the warhead and made their escape.

Realising the threat from the Italians, and not without a little grudging admiration, British naval chiefs turned to their technical divisions in early 1942 to create a similar craft and a range of other equipment, including rubber wetsuits and breathing apparatus. The British had managed to acquire Italian machines – 'Buster' Crabb was one of the first Britons to test out the Italian chariot – but they knew that if they were to stand any chance against the maritime threat and also conduct their own underwater operations, in colder waters, as well as in the relative warmth of the Mediterranean, they needed to research and develop, practically from scratch, their own capability.

By summer 1942, the British-built two-man chariot known as a jeep was ready for operations, along with other machines, such as 'X' craft, or four-man midget submarines, and single-seater underwater craft. (Incidentally, the smallest and least detectable of the single-seater craft was developed by a Quentin Reeves, known as Lieutenant-Colonel 'Q'.) At this time, a call went out for volunteers for 'special service', who, after a period of intense training, began their work.

British charioteers using a two-man torpedo

In Live and Let Die (chapters 18-19), Ian Fleming describes how Bond swims underwater to Mr Big's vessel, the Secatur, to plant a limpet mine. This was another weapon that saw much development during the Second World War; operatives became known as 'limpeteers'.

At one point during his swim, Bond is grabbed by an octopus and dragged towards its lair. Such a threat perhaps seems fanciful, but during the war, the risk to frogmen operating in the Far East from octopuses was considered serious enough by naval chiefs for guidance to be issued. This recommended that an operative grabbed by a tentacle stay absolutely motionless until the octopus become bored and let go. The guidelines added, not entirely seriously, that if the octopus became frightened, the operative should tickle the octopus underneath its armpits until it released its tentacles. Failing that, the frogman should jab it in the eye with a knife.

In his preparations for his underwater mission, James Bond orders cakes of shark repellent copper acetate and nigrosine dye, which had been developed by the US Naval Research Laboratory. Research by the Americans into anti-shark devices was active during the Second World War, and Waldron and Gleeson state that the products of that research – packets of black dye (the authors do not mention its ingredients) and containers of chemical crystals – were issued to British frogmen swimming through shark-infested waters.

Another of Bond's habits which alluded to wartime practices was his use of benzedrine tablets, which, in Live and Let Die, he takes ahead of his swim. Benzedrine is a form of amphetamine (colloquially known as speed), and during the Second World War its use was widespread, particularly by aircrews and frogmen on long, dangerous missions. Waldron and Gleeson describe how, for example, the crew of an 'X' craft engaged in a mission against a Japanese cruiser took benzedrine tablets to ward off sleep.

The Frogmen provided useful background information to episodes described in the Bond novels, but in reading it, I learned a lot about an extraordinary group of people, who undertook dangerous missions (such as clearing the waters off the northern French coast of mines before D-Day) using equipment that had been rushed into production with limited testing. I was certainly glad to have found a copy of the book in the jumble sale.

Live and Let Die in the Gleaner

In the manner of the Chinese calendar, I was born in the year of Live and Let Die. And this year, both the film and I are 40 years old. Last year, during the film's 50th anniversary, I trawled through the archives of the Jamaican Daily Gleaner and Sunday Gleaner to discover how the newspapers reported the production and release of Dr No, which was substantially filmed in Jamaica. How did journalists respond when Eon Productions returned to the country ten years later for the filming of key scenes from Live and Let Die?
 
The coverage began on 31 August 1972, when the Daily Gleaner reported that co-producer Harry Saltzman arrived in Montego Bay on 26 August to announce that parts of the film would be shot in Montego Bay (which was used for the fishing boat scenes), Falmouth (where the crocodile farm and Kananga's cave scenes would be shot) and Ocho Rios (for the hotel scenes and others) along the north coast. Saltzman was reported as saying that Live and Let Die would be the most extravagant of the Bond series yet and tell the story of a black crime king based on a Caribbean island who plans world conquest using occult means. Many Jamaicans were expected to get parts in the film, the paper added.
  
More filming locations were revealed on 9 October 1972. The Gleaner reported that Messrs Hanson and Davis, representatives of Eon Productions, met the secretary and councillors of the Hanover Parish Council to discuss filming in Lucea, a small north-coast town. It was agreed that a new road at Johnson Town would be closed and as much local labour as possible would be employed during the filming. (This location was used for the bus chase.)

On Monday 13 November, the Gleaner reported that Roger Moore and Gloria Hendry flew into Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay the day before (a photograph of Roger Moore greeting the manager of the Jamaican Tourist Board and the board's director of public relations was published on the 16th). Another arrival was tour director, Mr Henry Saltzman. The error amused Roger Moore, who noted it in his 'James Bond diary'. In his account, Roger Moore described being questioned repeatedly by the press about his salary, and could only shake the reporters off when he arrived at the Ironshore Golf and Country Club for lunch. “He would not disclose how much he was being paid for the James Bond series”, the paper wrote.

The filming of Live and Let Die was mentioned next on 19 November in the Sunday Gleaner in the social page, 'The World and His Wife'. “James Bond...walked over several areas of Ocho Rios over the past few days personified by actor Roger Moore”. The piece added that scenes  were also filmed at Owen Flynn's Ruins and Waterfalls. (These scenes included Bond and Rosie's picnic.)

Cast and crew returned to the UK in December, but items related to Live and Let Die continued to appear in the Gleaner afterwards. On 18 January 1973, the Gleaner published a photograph of Jane Seymour (Solitaire) and Gloria Hendry (Rosie Carver) beside a pool at the Sans Souci Hotel, where the production had been staying. A profile of Roger Moore was published on 18 February, and 5 August saw the publication of extracts from Roger Moore's 'James Bond Diary'.

Live and Let Die was released in the US on 27 June, and in the UK on 5 July. Jamaicans had to wait until 17 October before they could see the film. A feature announcing its arrival, published in the Sunday Gleaner on 14 October, noted Roger Moore's “suave, sophisticated style and physically impressive manner which conforms to author Ian Fleming's concept of British Agent 007”. Jane Seymour was said to portray Solitaire “with sensuous innocence”.

Not everyone enjoyed the film. In an opinion piece published on 30 October, Thomas Wright described Live and Let Die as “the poorest of the lot so far, though there were some great moments during the speed-boat chase”. The columnist also alluded to Jamaican protest that the film was “insulting to black people”, though dismissed the argument.

Just as in 1962 with Dr No, Live and Let Die gained regular press attention before and during its filming and at the time of its release. Forty years on, James Bond continues to fill newspaper pages and dominate other media outlets. It is testament to the success of the film series, that after 50 years, the James Bond phenomenon shows no sign of abating.

Reference
Mulder, M and Kloosterboer, D, 2008 On the Tracks of 007, DMD Digital