A few weeks before the trip, it hit me -- there HAS to be James Bond scenes tour of London. The group walking tour was sold out, but I liked my idea so much we sprung for the driving tour via cab and private guide.
Carol and I bonded over Bond early in our friendship, then dating, then engagement, then marriage. We see every Bond movie as soon as possible after release. One year I gave her a DVD collection of all the Bond movies up to that point, and we've re-watched many of them. I think the only Bond I haven't seen is "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," primarily because I've been snobby about George Lazenby only doing one movie. But, after this trip, that snobbish is gone and we ARE going to watch it (don't worry, I won't blog about it).
Before I start writing about the tour, a few salient points:
- My ringtone is the Bond action theme. Sometimes when my phone rings in a crowd, people's heads snap around. I believe what they are thinking is, damn, I wish I had that as my ringtone. (Thanks Maria Meredith for getting it onto my iPhone -- it had been a staple on my Blackberry all those happy Blackberry years ago).
- Carol's favorite Bond is Sean Connery, followed by Pierce Brosnan and then Daniel Craig.
- I don't really know my favorite. My first Bond movie was Moonraker in 1979. I saw it with a high school buddy, Jim Richards, and was immediately hooked. So I was a big Roger Moore fan, and still have a soft spot in my heart (my head?) for Moore. But I'd go Brosnan, Craig, Moore. Just don't let Carol read this, as she would be aghast that Connery is on the top three. Moore makes the list for sentimental reasons.
- One night, a friend and I took the DVD collection and watched EVERY opening scene. We then picked our favorites. Let me tell you, that's a pretty darn great way to spend an evening.
Let me first note that Mick and Bluey were great guides and great to talk with. We covered any number of topics beyond Bond, although Bond was definitely the bulk of the conversation. Mick in particular is a great conversationalist -- we immediately felt as if we'd known him for years on end. And Bluey was what you expect of a 64 year old London cabbie, gruff and funny.
Our first stop was at the College of Arms, and an adjacent alleyway that affords a view of St Paul's Cathedral. Both were in scenes from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (another reason to finally watch that movie). The College of Arms isn't what you think. It's not a military school. It's not even a school about left and right arms. Instead, it is a real place that deals with research and information on coats of arms. The website says it "is the official heraldic authority for England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and much of the Commonwealth, including Australia and New Zealand."
Mick would show us the scenes from the movie, and then we would go check it out. We went into the College of Arms, and the woman at the front desk was quite nice and let us take our time and take photos. Right next to it is a street with a view of St. Paul's Cathedral, both scenes were in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969: Lazenby).
This entrance heralds that you
are at the College of Arms
Coats of arms are cool, even
if they are anti-democratic.
The main room of the College of Arms.
This is the view of St. Paul's in
the movie with George Lazenby.
Our next stop was on Castle Baynard Street, where a car chase was filmed for Spectre (2015: Craig). It's where the new M (Ralph Fiennes, post Judi Dench) and Bond is being driven back to MI6, the car gets rammed, and Bond is taken. It's not much of a street, but it made for a memorable scene.
The view from Castle Baynard Street.
From there we went over to the Trinity Square entrance, which served as the outside scene of the Parliamentary hearing that gets attacked in Skyfall (2012: Craig).
Trinity Square, now a hotel.
Then we went to the Tobacco Dock on Wapping Lane, where they filmed part of the opening scene of The World Is Not Enough (1999 -- Brosnan). It's the scene where he takes the new, non-finished Q-designed boat on a chase past Parliament, down the Thames, through shootout scenes before going down a narrow canal, flying in the air, and smashing through a building. Huge fun to see the scene at that location.
Imagine Brosnan relentlessly
driving the boat up this
canal, bouncing over the small dams.
This is where the scene starts
in that part of the film.
The next scene, the Primrose at Broadgate Tower, claimed to be in Shanghai. The movie was Skyfall (2012: Craig) where a bad guy goes into the office building, killing two security guards. Bond follows him in, grabbing onto the elevator as it goes up.
If you tilt your head, it looks like
Shanghai. It was a cool night scene.
From there we stayed with Skyfall, swinging by the West Smithfield Car Park, where there was a completely non-dramatic scene of M (Judi Dench) being driven into an underground car parking lot. The weird thing is, I remember this scene, which means I need to get out more.
The parking garage. Thrilled?
Anyhow, the huge courtyard of the three-sided building was in both Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies. By the way, the opener of Goldeneye (1995: Brosnan) is, in my mind, the best opener of any Bond pre-Craig. Honestly, I'd have to go back and look at the Craig openers to see which ones, if any, match Goldeneye. You can have a different opinion about how the opening scene is, but you'd be wrong.
Also, the Goldeneye pen clicking scene with character Boris Grishenko is one of my favorite Bond scenes of all time, especially with the timing of Boris's "I am invincible" line.
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997: Brosnan) was almost as good. I'm pretty certain we took Torie to it, as an infant. We put her car seat on the floor and she slept right through all the explosions, gunshots, and love scene.
Somerset House. The construction in the front
is actually an art installation. Yeah, we
laughed about that too!
Another part of Somerset House.
The next stop was on the south bank of the Thames. From No Time To Die (2021: Craig), there is a scene where M and Bond show up at Q's house. It's number 42 Roupell Street, and was kind of neat to see. We didn't go in the house, as that would be a very rude thing to ask. Apparently the people who live there are quite used to gawkers and people like us coming to view the scene.
It took me some time to get used to Ben Whishaw, a youthful actor, to play Q after John Cleese and Desmond Llewelyn (33 years of playing Q), but it makes sense, as tech is a young person's game.
42 Roupell Street
Our penultimate stop was at the intersection of Westminster bridge and the South Bank of the Thames. The bridge itself was a key scene in Spectre (2015: Craig), while the South Bank Lion was in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997: Brosnan), and then the steps on the southeast side of the bridge was also used in a Spectre scene.
Glen, Mick, Carol, Parliament,
and the Westminster Bridge.
The South Side Lion.
One last photo of Parliament.
MI6. Pretty cool building, and scenes.
After the tour was over, Bluey and Mick dropped us off at St. Paul's Cathedral, because that was our next stop.
I would add this tour isn't for everyone. Carol and I loved it because it was pretty neat for us as big Bond fans. It was also cool remembering a lot of the scenes that we saw. I've embedded the link to the tour here. There are other Bond tour options on the page as well. The company also offer Ted Lasso tours, Harry Potter, and others.
Spoiler alert: With rain here at home on Friday night, we decided to finally watch "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," aka OHMSS. We got about an hour ten in to the movie, and both agreed, with about the same amount of time left in OHMSS that is was terrible and we turned it off. You couldn't pay me to watch the last seventy minutes. It's not just George Lazenby's fault, the whole movie and script were wooden and stilted. Out of a morbid curiousity, I googled Lazenby.
Turns out it was his first acting role. Turns out he broke his contract to do seven more films (paving the way for Roger Moore). Turns out Lazenby threw away his Bond money on marijuana and cocaine. What a jerk. By the way, if you have a different opinion of the movie, as Tommy Lee Jones said in "The Fugitive":
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