My James Bond Selfie Collection Part 3 - At the end of 007 Selfies but does that include SPECTRE?

So this is the last part ie part 3 of my James Bond Selfie Collection. The question becomes, with the latest movie out but not on DVD yet, does it include 007 SPECTRE? I started my peculiar ‘James Bond Selfie’ collection about 5 years ago. I posted a blog about my early 007 Selfies here in 2013 and then added part 2 of more Bond Selfies in the summer of 2014. I said I wasn't trying to visit every scene of every location Bond has been to, but that I would want to have at least one selfie from each movie. Now I will conclude my series as I’ve now reached the practical conclusion to this weird collecting hobby, as I have placed myself into a spot where James Bond has been, at least once in each of the 24 official movies done so far. But the previous two blog postings were quite popular, so lets celebrate one more set of pictures with our favorite spy.

What is a Bond Selfie? Its a selfie - picture you take of yourself - where you stand today in a spot where a James Bond actor has stood in a past movie. Freeze-frame the DVD and try to find that exact doorway or that exact street corner or that exact restaurant, etc. And try to get the scene so ‘perfect’ that your background matches (or as close as practically can be done with cameraphones considering camera angles and telephoto lenses etc) the background in the original movie scene. You’ll see in just a moment, here a picture truly speaks better than a thousand words.

So to ‘my way’ of doing the collection. Because 007 is a British spy always on international adventures, I didn’t want to just go take a few pictures in London and get half of the movies ‘covered’. So while yes, I do have a lot of my 007 Selfies shot in London, I also ‘decided’ that I will not consider a given movie ‘done’ until I had at least one Bond Selfie from a scene that was shot outside of the UK. With this, we’re revisiting a few of the movies I had shown you a Bond selfie before, but now having the non-UK picture. And this being the last edition of my Bond Selfies, I will show you a few extra pics, as some of my absolute faves, even if we had seen something from that movie before. As in the two earlier editions, I will do the movies in chronological order.

Dr No, 1962 (Sean Connery)

I showed you the Bond Selfie in the first set, at Kingston airport in Jamaica.

From Russia With Love, 1963 (Sean Connery)

We did this last time in the second set, with 007 and the defecting woman spy in Istanbul on a boat on the Bosporus. But I want to show you another picture, as this starts the Bond tradition in the movies of pretending to be somewhere, where the actual actor was not. So lets do the ending scene. You remember Bond takes the girl on the Orient Express train through Yugoslavia, then they get on a speedboat to Venice, where they end the movie kissing under the Bridge of Sighs. This scene:

And here is the real James Bond at the Bridge of Sighs in Venice




So whats the problem? When you watch the film closely, you see its not shot live on a boat in Venice. The Venice scenery is trick photography, someone else was in Venice, shot the scene from a boat, and they projected that. Sean Connery and the woman were in a studio, not on the water. By modern standards its quite crude trick photography, at the time this was common and considered high quality. Its visible to the naked eye. So once again, I have been to the real place where 007 only pretended to go. Not bad, eh?

Now while we talk about Venice. Venice is the only place apart from London, where you can get yourself to three different movies (and 007 selfies with 3 different Bond actors) in just 10 minutes. The Bridge of Sighs is right next to Piazza San Marco the main square of Venice. If you start here where I was (one block from the gondola parking lot outside Piazza San Marco), then walk towards the Piazza, you will pass on the right, a building that Roger Moore ‘drove past’ in the gondola-hovercraft in Moonraker. This building:




Then walk into the square and past the cathedral and to the furthest point of the square, diagonally to your left, to the last corner there. Thats where Daniel Craig looks for his wife at the end of Casino Royale (when she’s emptied their bank account). Daniel Craig runs from the hotel to the piazza to this spot:




There you go. One romantic visit to Venice, one of the most historic and gorgeous cities of the world, and you also picked up 3 James Bond movies, and 3 Bond actors in just 10 minutes... congratulations.

Goldfinger, 1964 (Sean Connery)

What many consider the best 007 movie (and for older audiences also the best 007 actor), Goldfinger we had done before. It was the scene with Oddjob the Korean driver and bodyguard for the villain, Goldfinger, at the Kent Golf Course in England, where the Korean decapitates a statue, throwing his hat like a frisbee. We all love that scene, one of the best in the whole 24 movie series. But like I said, its a British scene. I did want to find an international scene out of Goldfinger. Well, this summer on my world tour, I rented an Audi in Germany, drove to Vienna in Austria (pics coming below), to Venice in Italy (the above pics), and then back to Germany via Switzerland. And on that leg, I drove the gorgeous winding road of the legendary Furka Pass. The efficient Swiss have long since built a tunnel under the mountain, so the road sees very little traffic. But its the spaghetti-twirl road up the mountain we see Bond chasing Goldfinger’s Rolls Royce (and the racing duel Bond has with the woman assassin in the Mustang, remember, the Aston Martin shredding the tyres?). Anyway, a picture tells you what I mean. This scene:




Yes, and here is the real James Bond, on the exact same spot of the road, on the Furka Pass in Switzerland.




Note that I got that angle by using a selfie-stick.. This is my favorite pair of the whole Bond Selfie collection. It shows the 007 actor, Sean Connery the original Bond. It shows the villain, Goldfinger down as a tiny spec with his Rolls Royce. It shows the CAR, the gorgeous Aston Martin DB5 which was only introduced in this, the third of the Bond movies. It has one of my favorite stretches of road (I had driven Furka pass several times in past years, and again on this day, drove it up and down twice). And then the cool camera angle shows the rifle of the woman assassin. This picture kind of ‘has it all’ if you’re a Bond fan.

BTW if you are looking for the picture on your rental car, start from the bottom of the mountain and climb up Furka Pass. You see the river there on the bottom. Then climb two turns of the corkscrew road and you’re at the spot I took my picture.

Thunderball, 1965 (Sean Connery)

We did Thunderball already in the first set, Nassau city center in the Bahamas.

You Only Live Twice, 1967 (Sean Connery)

Then James Bond died. He was killed at the start of the fifth Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, shot by some gangsters in Hong Kong. And we see Bond, a Navy officer (007 has a rank of Commander in the Royal Navy) given a burial at sea, in Hong Kong harbor (Hong Kong used to belong to the UK back then, remember). And then, we audience members can relax, its a hoax burial, Bond has underwater breathing gear, he is taken to a British submarine, and the actual movie can move onto Japan where we have the villain with the hollowed-out volcano etc (which was a world record at the time for the most expensive movie set).

Ok so I showed you in the second set a 007 Selfie from You Only Live Twice, the scene in Tokyo at the Osato Chemicals headquarters building (and the fabulous white convertible Toyota 2000 car). But I do want to revisit this movie. First off, how often do you have the lead character of a 24 movie franchise killed in the fifth episode? So the death scene is something special. Plus its in my hometown haha, so lets do the Hong Kong burial scene. Bond isn’t visible but they suggest its happening at the warship here at Victoria Harbor:




And where was the real 007? I was at Victoria Harbor at the same spot only 49 years later:




So yeah, can’t actually ‘see’ James Bond in the wide angle shot but I already had my ‘Bond actor’ view from the movie. However, this is the only scene we can see identifyable Hong Kong in that movie. But then I do want to do one more from the movie. This was the helicopters Bond flick. It has ‘Little Nellie’ the gyrocopter that Bond flies to fight chasing helicopters. It has the giant flying crane helicopter that uses a giant electric magnet to lift the gangster car off the road and dropping it into the sea. And Bond flies with another helicopter to the Japanese Secret Service ninja training school, supposedly at the historic landmark Himeji castle. So Bond is here (see castle in background)




And here is the real James Bond at the same field where the helicopter landed.




The reason I really like that Bond Selfie (apart from the stunningly beautiful Himeji castle itself) is that Sean Connery is seen inside the helicopter as it lands (and he steps out of it). This was mid 1960s and helicopters were very cool (and quite high) tech for the time.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969 (George Lazenby)

Then we get the only movie by George Lazenby. OHMSS was the one with Telly Savalas as the villain and much of the action was in Switzerland atop the mountain. I showed you the London selfie from the movie in the first set, and showed you last time in the second set, that I had rented an Audi, driven to Schilthorn, that mountain where Piz Gloria the rotating restaurant is, and arrived too late, the lifts up the mountain had closed for the day. So I said I had to go back. Now on my trip last summer, not that far from Furka Pass actually, is Schilthorn, so I tried a second time. I wanted this picture:




Thats yes Telly Savalas as the villain Blofeld, and George Lazenby as 007, outside, at the helicopter landing pad, at Piz Gloria the restaurant atop Schilthorn.

And here is the real James Bond at the same location. So I met for the first time another person who collects Bond Selfies, at this mountain. That man in his 30s had only recently started and had 5 movies done, but he hadn’t yet thought of the ‘exact positioning’ into the movie scene as a freeze-frame from the DVD. Its like what happened with me and Amsterdam at the start of this collection five years ago, with the Magere Bridge, as I explained. I didn’t notice which angle the movie scene was shot, and thus I had ‘the wrong spot’ for my selfie. I helped my friend by showing him the freeze-frame of the above scene so he could also now get the correct picture. We of course spoke quite a lot about our shared hobby.

I was on the Schilthorn in the summer and it often is rainy and foggy and the view was not clear. If you can, arrive to the mountain in the winter, then most days the skies are crystal-clear and you can get ‘the shot’ with the 007 scene from inside the revolving restaurant. They’ve even tagged the appropriate window with 007 so you can’t miss it (and you’ll get the 007 logo onto your picture haha, for those who want such nonsense).




As you can see, the mountains behind me are quite obscured, so I can’t show you a reasonably similar selfie with Bond and the gorgeuos ladies dining at that spot in the movie. But yeah, it was the same spot, regardless. BTW the place is very well 007 branded, there is a 007 themes shop and the cappuchino even comes with 007 branding:




The one thing I was hoping to find, inside the restaurant, was the golden decoration at the circular staircase, very memorable from the movie. This one:




And would you know it, the real James Bond was also there




Haha, ok George Lazenby has been done more than enough. And finally I have a Bond Selfie also from OHMSS that is not taken in London. So lets move on.

Diamonds Are Forever, 1971 (Sean Connery)

We did Bond at LAX, Los Angeles airport in the first set.

Live and Let Die, 1973 (Roger Moore)

Then we switch bond actors, Roger Moore took over but I showed you two Bond selfies from this move in the first set, one of Manhattan Bridge and the other of the imaginary country of San Monique.

Man with the Golden Gun, 1974 (Roger Moore)

I showed you the Bond Selfie in Bangkok at the Democracy monument in the first set. But I want to show you one of the special ‘catches’ I have tried more than once, and it finally worked last year. Its one of the most famous, most luxurious and most expensive hotels in the world, the Hong Kong landmark of the Peninsula Hotel. James Bond follows the woman from Macau and the hydrofoil ferry ride to Hong Kong and she jumps into a green Rolls Royce and Bond chases that car to discover its a courtesy car of the famous hotel. And then Bond follows her into the hotel. And he brings a bottle of champagne to the lady, in Hong Kong’s Peninsula Hotel, room 602. Like this:




So has the real Bond been to the Peninsula Hotel, often yes, I’ve had many meetings there but never stayed overnight at the hotel as a guest. But have I been to the door of room 602?




Yes I have! (the hotel has been totally renovated of course in the previous 41 years, but this is the same room and same door. So the walls are still the same but now the doors are no longer white, they're now painted black). So how did I do it? I’m an international man of mystery, how hard can that be? I positioned myself near the elevators, was dressed, as I always am, in a sharp suit so I looked just like any other guest. I arrived at a moment when a nearly-full amount of people were getting into the elevator, and the polite gentleman that I am, I let the others enter first, then I went in. And luck was with me, someone else was already going to the sixth floor, and I got into the hotel and the floor without actually having an electronic key to get to ‘my floor’ haha.. Again, let the other person walk to their hotel room direction first, then I quickly seeked the door to room 602, snapped the selfie, and then quickly took the elevator down to the lobby and out.  Sneaky. But yes, I had attempted this ... more than once ... before.

The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977 (Roger Moore)

Next we have Roger Moore’s best Bond movie. I showed you my pic at the Grand Pyramid, not exactly the same spot as Roger Moore but close enough that I won’t bother to fly there just to retake that picture (and its seems from careful study of the freeze-frame that the Pyramid scene was shot in the studio, not live on the spot. Jaws was definitely there, him with the Sphinx in the background, but Roger Moore maybe wasn’t there for the Pyramid shot. The pyramids don’t look quite ‘right’. I think that was done in the studio).

Moonraker, 1979 (Roger Moore)

Then from the best of the Moore Bonds to the worst. Moonraker starts well and then deteriorates to a farce, set in space. But lets ignore the merit of the movie, it is a Bond movie and its set in one of my ultimate fave cities, that I often visit, Rio de Janeiro. So now on my world tour of my summer holiday I of course stopped in Rio and took some Bond selfies. I’ll only show two. Here the classic gorgeous Rio shot on top of Sugarloaf mountain, where the Jesus Christ the Redeemer statue on top of Corcovado Mountain is seen in the distance.




And here is the real James Bond on the same spot




Mountains don’t change haha. Gosh Rio is gorgeous. But I also particularly like those Bond Selfies that are shot indoors, not outside, and are still identifyable. So Moonraker is the one where Jaws fights with Bond on the cable car and bites the cable. And here is one gorgeous freeze-frame of Bond and the babe inside the cable car:




And has the real Bond been also inside the Sugarloaf Mountain cable car, at that same segment of the car ride, of course I have:




Note its the same backdrop, so this is also the same segment (there are two separate cable cars going through an intermim stop half-way). And note, the cable car itself is a different model now, 36 years later. Look at the windows. They keep fitting larger cabins to the cable car system. And here pro tip, if you want this shot, its from the top (highest you can go, ie the second ride) and the way to get the pic of you alone in the car, is to wait until others have left or are just departing the cable car. Position yourself in the middle of the car, just as others leave, before they open the door for incoming people to go down from the mountain, snap your selfie. Be quick, you only get one chance, but it will work if you’ve planned it well. And it seems like you’re alone in the cable car haha. If you wait until the doors open and everybody rushes in, they will rush to the windows and crowd out your view from the cabin to the beautiful Rio scenery outside.

But I do want to do one more selfie from Moonraker, because this was not formally mentioned in the reference materials I saw, about where Moonraker was shot, on location. The movie mentions it was shot in Brazil but not that they also shot part of it in Argentina. And as I love waterfalls, on this trip last summer I also fulfilled my long desire to visit Iguazu Falls (largest waterfalls in the world). This place:




So yeah, gorgeous place on the border where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet. Absolutely breathtaking place that I will definitely go back to. But yes. Bond? In Moonraker if you remember, Bond is chased on a river by Jaws, when Bond suddenly has a hang glider appear from the roof of his speedboat. Bond flies off into the sky, while Jaws has his boat go over the waterfall. That waterfall is actually the Devil’s Throat part of Iguazu Falls. And then Bond lands his hang glider and calmly walks into the jungle to discover the villain Drax’s rocket launching facility. Roger Moore actually walks from this angle in front of Devil’s Throat:




And now that I’ve been to Iguazu Falls, I can verify, that is not the Brazilian side. It is only possible on the Argentinian side. No amount of mirror image or anything can create that image from the Brazilian side. Roger Moore was in Argentina, literally, physically, and had his passport stamped. He was in Argentina but most record of where Moonraker was shot (and any other movies of James Bond travel) have never said he visited Argentina. But we have evidence he did. Oh, how do we know?




Here is the real Bond at the same spot. That, my dear readers, is the Argentina side of Iguazu Falls. Yeah this has been a fun hobby, combining love of James Bond movies with world travel. Lets move on

For Your Eyes Only, 1981 (Roger Moore)

We did this selfie last time out of the monastery in Meteora

Octopussy, 1983 (Roger Moore)

This movie we did in both previous editions, in the first set I showed the Sotheby’s auction house in London, the second set had the two selfies from Udaipur in India.

A View to a Kill, 1985 (Roger Moore)

Roger’s last and quite tired Bond flick was A View to a Kill, a bit of a world tour from Paris to San Francisco, with Grace Jones the black supermodel as the chief hench(wo)man. I showed you in the first set pictures of me at the Eiffel Tower, and at the Golden Gate Bridge but long ago, random holiday pictures (with my car). I said I’d have to revisit to get better pics. Now we have it finally. So in Paris you remember the chase on the Eiffel Tower, when the killer escapes by doing a base jump with parachute, and Bond steals a taxi to chase the parachute and the Renault car is split in half, so the front-wheel car arrives as a 2-wheel vehicle to the bridge, etc... That chase scene. When 007 arrives to the taxi to steal the cab, we have this scene of Roger Moore below the Eiffel Tower:




And here is the real James Bond at the same spot underneat the Eiffel Tower




Gotta luv this hobby. Ah Paris the city of love and romance (And of James Bond). Getting Bond Seflies in all my fave cities, New York, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro and Paris, what could be nicer? I took a lot of selfies of Bond’s romp in Paris but lets leave it at that one for this public collection. Now we have AVTAK also done for my final collection.

The Living Daylights, 1987 (Timothy Dalton)

The we swap Bond actors to Timothy Dalton. I showed you the selfie from The Living Daylights taken at Gibraltar in the first Selfie set. But now I want to show something not exactly a Bond Selfie as ‘I was in the same spot’ geographically, but rather, I was ‘in the same car’ haha. Early in the movie we have the Soviet spy chief wanting to defect. He is driven by James Bond in the trunk of an Audi 200 (aka Audi 5000 for American market). Here Timothy Dalton is with his sniper rifle, getting to the car:




And have I driven that car? That exact same model (and color) car? Did I OWN that car? Yes. Here is the real Bond and his beloved Audi 5000 CS Quattro Turbo:




So the geographic location obviously is not the same, Bond was in Bratislava Slovakia in the movie (actual scene shot in Vienna Austria) and I am here with my Audi in Helsinki at the Senate Square, note I still even have my New York licence plates on my car (Bond has never visited Finland it the movies, but has in one of the books). I loved that car.. But yeah. Lets move on

Licence to Kill, 1989 (Timothy Dalton)

I showed you two selfies from LTK, one from Florida Keys, Hemingway House, in the first selfie collection. Then I showed the other from the imaginary country of Isthmus, in the second selfie collection.

Goldeneye, 1995 (Pierce Brosnan)

Next we swap to the last real James Bond and who became my new fave finally surpassing Sean Connery, ie Pierce Brosnan. He wasn’t at his best in Goldeneye but kept getting better in each of his four outings. He was robbed, he should have gotten at least one more Bond movie. But yes, I showed you the selfie in the first collection, of Bond in St Petersburg Russia (which was actually shot in London). But I do want to bring another shot of Bond in the movie, because in that movie Bond went back in ‘his history’ to the old Soviet Union, and Arkhangelsk. The movie starts with James Bond running on top of a dam, then bungee-jumping down the face of the dam, to then enter the soviet weapons laboratory. Memorable opening scene. Well, they did not shoot that in Arkhangelsk. That dam is in Switzerland, its the Tusker Dam (also known as the Locarno Dam also known as the Verzasca Dam aka the Contra Dam) and its a real person who does the jump (not Pierce Brosnan but a competent base jumper) so thats not done by trick photography or CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery). So the opening when we first see the new Bond, who became my fave Bond actor started with Pierce Brosnan running atop the dam like this:




And have I been to Arkhangelsk? On top of that same dam? Check it out?




Yeah. I was there (obviously at Tusker Dam in Switzerland). And were you to doubt this really is a place where they actually DO the James Bond bungee jump, check this out:




Now. I would have wanted to do the jump myself. Honestly. But I was in a hurry to the airport to return my rental car, and this shot was taken early in the morning just after sunrise. The bungee jump organizers hadn’t even arrived by the time I had to drive away, North towards Germany.

Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997 (Pierce Brosnan)

We did two 007 Selfies from TND in the first set, one from Hamburg Germany (shot in London) the other from Ho Chi Minh City ie Saigon of Vietnam (actual scene shot in Bangkok Thailand).

The World Is Not Enough, 1999 (Pierce Brosnan)

And we did one selfie from The World Is Not Enough (Bond’s family motto), the boat chase scene of London starting at the MI6 offices, in the first set in 2013. But that was a London scene. So I wanted a non-London scene. The ending scene of the movie is in Istanbul, at the Maiden Tower, where Bond is tortured and the bad guy brings the stolen Soviet nuclear submarine they intend to detonate in the harbor. So Bond is taken to Maiden Tower on the boat in this scene




Have I been to Istanbul, on the Bosporus, near Maiden Tower?




You betcha. So TWINE is now also ‘properly done’ for my collection.

Die Another Day, 2003 (Pierce Brosnan)

And then we get Brosnan’s last Bond movie, Die Another Day. I showed three selfies from it in the first collection, the secret door to the spy office subway station in London, the Cuba beach with Halle Berry aka Jinx, and the shot of Hong Kong harbor after Bond escapes from the hospital and swims ashore with his beard. But that shot was at night, and my selfie was in daylight, so of course, I went back and shot the night time shot which I shared in the second set. Easy to do, living in Hong Kong haha. But I want to do one more selfie from 007 DAD. Again, this is a special one, from inside in no explicit geographic location, simply somewhere above the Atlantic. But inside a particularly fave place for me (and for Bond no doubt). So Bond has been in Cuba chasing the bad guys, then he gets his invitation to come back home to London. So he flies what? British Secret Agent? British Airways of course, in First Class.




James Bond inside British Airways Boeing 747, in First Class, in seat 04D. The old BA First class interior, with the lovely wood finish. And has the Real James Bond flown a British Airways Boeing 747 in First Class? I think he may have:




I have actually flown in the seat 04D and noted it was the James Bond seat, but I didn’t think of taking a selfie in that seat at the time (now the interiors have been updated, that movie was 13 years ago) and the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet is being phased out of BA service. But I do have a picture - not a selfie - of myself in the First Class of Boeing 747 of British Airways, with the old interior:


So I was sitting in the same cabin but in this picture, I am flying in seat 04H. In the Bond picture, its the woman in the white coat on the left of the picture, thats my seat. And the picture was taken by a gorgeous lovely BA cabin attendant.. so its technically not a ‘selfie’ but hey, BA is not just my fave airline, its the World’s Favourite Airline and of course its James Bond’s favourite airline too - the only time we’ve ever seen 007 inside a commercial airliner, in the 24 movies, was this time in DAD. He’s flown Pan Am, Lufthansa, etc but only once we saw him inside a commercial airliner. BA. And in First Class (of course).

Casino Royale, 2006 (Daniel Craig)

Its time to switch to the current Bond James Bond, Daniel Craig. He started with Casino Royale. I showed you the Bond Selfie shot in the Bahamas at Paradise Island in the first set. Now I will do a second selfie from this movie, because it was such a hassle to get this picture. So, in the movie, after Bond has played poker and won the Aston Martin, the villain rushes to Miami to go blow up the new prototype giant commercial jet airplane. And Bond walks into Miami airport, this scene:




And I often fly through MIA airport so I figured thats as easy an Selfie to get as the LAX selfie was when connecting through Los Angeles airport. And I walked all through the airport looking for that picture and could not find the spot. And by now, I’m pretty good at spotting what kind of stuff is easy to change and what doesn’t change. So I was hunting the OUTSIDE, to find THIS spot from the movie, the exact entrance for Bond:




And you know what. It kinda looks like MIA except it is not. And no, Miami airport has not been totally renovated in the past six years. I was there only about three years after this movie came out, and no, there clearly was no such place. This is the real MIA airport (from 'that' angle above):




So I went back to do more research and found out, oops, no. The Miami scenes once again were fakes. The movie producers didn’t get permission from Miami to shoot their airport carnage terrorist scene at their international airport. So what did the producers do? They found another airport that kind of looked like Miami, brought in some American cars, and faked it. What else is new, this is the movies. Grand illusion. Where was it? Check out me in Prague:




Yes, what they called Miami Airport is clearly Prague Airport in the Czech Republic. And now I have my inside picture easily, finally, that matches the Bond pic.




Quantum of Solace, 2008 (Daniel Craig)

We did Quantum of Solace in the second set, the scene from the hotel in La Paz Bolivia

Skyfall, 2012 (Daniel Craig)

Skyfall wasn’t even out when I published my first Bond Selfie set. But in the second set I had two scenes from it, the Shanghai hotel interior scene (in reality shot in London) and the Dead City in Macau (in reality shot in Nagasaki Japan). Which only leaves us one more movie to do. The DVD isn’t out, so this is kind of an ‘unfair’ attempt but can we do a Bond Selfie out of SPECTRE?

SPECTRE, 2015 (Daniel Craig)

Haha yes we can. We can take the TRAILER from the movie !!! Now did I happen to visit Mexico or Switzerland or Algeria in the last few months? No. But I did happen to visit Rome Italy haha. I was in Rome just a few weeks before I saw the movie. I had seen the trailer twice, but not more, and didn’t try to pick the scene from the trailer. I rather went by the known movie shooting permits in Rome, and took a lazy afternoon and evening wandering through all the locations, starting with the Colisseum. And took whatever I thought seemed like a Bond-ish spot. I wanted to see if I could anticipate the shot. So in the movie there is the big chase scene with James Bond in the prototype Aston Martin, chased by the baddie in the prototype Jaguar? Along the river? That scene. Its in the trailer:




And was your real Bond able to anticipate that scene?




Yes, on the same spot. Now, I knew they had permission to shoot at that explicit bridge in Rome, so I just too about 30 selfies in every direction and was lucky to nail this one haha. But yes, I even have already one James Bond Selfie conforming to a freeze-frame of 007 SPECTRE even before the DVD has been released... not bad. My collection is thus ‘complete’ and this was the last edition of my pictures. The quick stats? I have now a total of 154 selfies including at least one from each 007 of the 24 movies made so on average 6.4 selfies per movie. In my Selfies I visit 45 claimed unique locations in 29 claimed countries of the movies. By this I limit any one city as one location even if multiple Bond movies visited that city. To get those 154 Bond selfies, I actually physically had to visit 35 actual geographical physical locations (such as different cities) in 23 countries. If we say the collection took about 5 years, it means on average 30 Bond Selfies collected per year or 2.5 per month.

BOND AS FREQUENT FLIER

While we're on it, lets also do the summary of James Bond as a Frequent Flier. Bond doesn't always fly on commercial airliners but he often also does. So if we assume he goes home to Britain after any movie unless the next movie picks up where the previous ended, and except for where he is seen or known to travel by some other method, lets assume he flies commercially when he suddenly appears in another country. Also, am assuming he flies the most direct route but using flights which exist where at times a direct flight is not available. With that, the six Bond actors have averaged about 16,800 airmiles per movie (27,000 km). The Bond who has flown most on average was Pierce Brosnan at 23,800 miles (38,100 km) and the one who got to fly the least was George Lazenby who only got to fly 9,100 miles (14,600km) in his one movie. In terms of a single movie with most miles, its Brosnan's Die Another Day at 40,100 miles (64,200 km). The spy who flew the least was Sean Connery in From Russia with Love which only stayed in Europe and he crossed countries by train and boat so he only flew 2,300 miles (3,600 km). So lets do the full table eh?

BOND FREQUENT FLIER MILES BY ACTOR AND MOVIE

Sean Connery 
Dr No (1962) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,340 miles
From Russia With Love (1963) . . . . . . . . 2,274 miles
Goldfinger (1964) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19,687 miles
Thunderball (1965) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,170 miles
You Only Live Twice (1967) . . . . . . . . . . . 5,990 miles
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) . . . . . . . . 22,839 miles
TOTAL CONNERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69,300 miles (average 11,550)

George Lazenby
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) . .  9,140 miles (average 9,140)

Roger Moore
Live and Let Die (1973) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,558 miles
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)  . . . 19,480 miles
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) . . . . . . . . . 6,776 miles
Moonraker (1979) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32,625 miles
For Your Eyes Only (1981) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,777 miles
Octopussy (1983) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20,003 miles
A View to a Kill (1985) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,623 miles
TOTAL ROGER MOORE . . . . . . . . . . . . 108,842 miles (average 15,549)

Timothy Dalton
The Living Daylights (1987) . . . . . . . . . . . 12,508 miles
Licence to Kill (1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12,328 miles
TOTAL TIMOTHY DALTON . . . . . . . . . . . 24,836 miles (average 12,418)

Pierce Brosnan
Goldeneye (1995) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17,878 miles
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) . . . . . . . . . . 17,604 miles
The World is Not Enough (1999) . . . . . . . . 19,666 miles
Die Another Day (2003) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40,089 miles
TOTAL PIERCE BROSNAN . . . . . . . . . . . . 95,237 miles (average 23,809)

Daniel Craig
Casino Royale (2006) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34,323 miles
Quantum of Solace (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30,122 miles
Skyfall (2012) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,584 miles
SPECTRE (2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,395 miles
TOTAL DANIEL CRAIG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93,429 miles (average 23,356)

TOTAL ALL BONDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400,779 miles (average 16,699)

So thats the mileage of our spies. In rough terms there is growth if we look at the average of the actors. And a few interesting observations. Bond has visited 53 countries (including 2 imaginary countries). He's been to five of the six inhabited continents (never visited Oceania ie never to Australia or New Zealand etc). He's been to seven areas of the USA but never to Canada. They tend to come up with new countries that Bond hasn't yet visited, so its likely he'll do those countries in the future. And while the movie has visited South Africa (Diamonds Are Forever) James Bond himself didn't go there in the movie, so he hasn't visited that former British colony either. Ok. Now I will end with the two points I made already before. First if you happen to be the wife of a millionaire whose husband is a huge Bond fan...

If anyone out there among my readers happens to be a billionaire or multi-multi-millionaire, who is a huge Bond fan, and wants to visit real 007 locations and has the jet fuelled and ready to go, I'll be happy to be your guide. If there's a wife of such a rich dude, who knows her husband has already bought anything he might ever want, but the wife wants to give a once-in-a-lifetime experience to her Bond-fan husband, I've got the perfect week around the world, or two weeks, or how much time you can get your hubby to spare. And wouldn't you know it, while I might help your husband find the exact scene for Bond, you might prefer to spend your time in that town at the shopping malls in such shopping mecchas as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, London, New York and San Francisco. Or if you prefer the beaches, then Bond's been to just about all the paradises from Phuket to Bahamas, from Rio to the Keys, from Cote d'Sur to Jamaica... Drop me a note.

Finally, to be clear. As I wrote in both of the previous blogs, for the legal issues about copyright. I have already contacted the owners of the Bond movies and asked for permission to use these screen shots of the movies. I did that more three years ago, and I have not heard them saying I could not use the screen shots. I have of course purchased each of the DVDs (except for SPECTRE for which I used the official trailer video on YouTube and will be buying the DVD the moment it is released). I am using this blog article only for research use - a reason which exists for exception in copyright law, allowing 'fair use'. I am researching and documenting the exact camera locations for these sites, and sharing, totally free and with no commercial or other gains to me, those locations for other Bond fans to also be able to find and enjoy. No such complete record exists as far as I know. I have no subscriptions, no registrations and no fees to this blog. I have no interest in selling anything Bond-related. My blog is about technology and as I am already rated by Forbes as the most influential expert of my field, I cannot possibly have any reason whatsoever to try to create more traffic to this blog (this blog is not for sale, will never be). This blog article cannot in any way be seen as damaging to the Bond franchise but can only be seen as a love-letter to the movies and one that encourages Bond fans to experience their passion even more deeply. But if Bond licence holders contact me and instruct me to take any of the screen shots off this blog, of course I will do so immediately. My contact information is tomi at tomiahonen dot com.

Comments

[Wayne Borean]

Official Bond movies?

I still maintain that the best 'Bond' movie was the original Casino Royale staring Sir David Niven (before he was knighted). I have not seen ANY of the Daniel Craig movies in protest for their having messed with such an iconic flic.

Yes, I'm strange :)

[Sam]

Awesome collection Tomi!! Love your hobby. Not many people in the world can afford it though :P

[Christoph]

I can't help, but I read the room number from "Man with the Golden Gun" as 502, not 602.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Wayne, Sam and Christoph

Thanks for the comments. Wayne, haha, gosh, most 'Bond fans' and movie fans rate the original Casino Royale movie as a bad movie. It was intended as a parody of Bond movies and was released at the early peak of Bond hysteria when literally dozens of Bond clone movies were coming out. But to each his (or her) own. Thanks. Happy you enjoyed at least that movie version of the superspy.

Sam haha, true, and obviously this hobby was funded partly by my travel schedule to my clients and then the resulting frequent flier miles that allowed visiting the other locations where I didn't happen to have a business gig or connecting flight at the time. Now I have to think of something else to do haha.

Christoph, I get it, I also noticed it. So you're saying the Roger Moore freeze-frame of Man With Golden Gun seems to show Peninsula Hotel white door room number as 502 not 602. The light shines from the circular part of the 6 vs the open part in 5, conveniently to cause that illusion. If you watch the actual movie for that scene, its a clear 602... I tried to get a good still image but it is yes, a trick of light for that freeze-frame. I also wanted a relatively clear image of both actors with both faces showing (the hotel guy moves quickly so he gets blurry fast so I had to stop the freeze-frame several times to get this shot cleanly). In the movie its very clear 602. (But I do love it that our readers might study the pictures that closely...)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Wayne Borean]

As an aside, the first Bond movie I saw was Diamonds are Forever. On my first business trip to Las Vegas (to attend the World of Concrete trade show) guess which hotel I stayed in?

Note that I didn't take the glass walled elevator (I'm terrified of heights). Luckily my room was on the second floor, and reachable by staircase.

I didn't know that was the hotel used, as I'd not seen the movie in years, but not long after our local DVD store had a sale on James Bond movies, and when I watched Diamonds are Forever I recognized the hotel. If I'd know ahead of time, I would have gotten my picture taken outside as a keepsake!

While most James Bond fans may not like the original Casino Royale, I loved it. Partly it is the writer in me. I like the odd...

As an example of some of my writing, here's a link to the anthology that has my first professional fiction sale. The editor said the morning after he read my story he had stepped out of his office for a smoke, and saw a nice little old lady making a fuss over her grandchildren. He said the sight made him shiver...

http://www.amazon.com/What-Scares-Boogey-John-Manning/dp/0988755033/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452621611&sr=8-1&keywords=what+scares+the+boogey

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi all Bond fans

Just an interesting update. For 2017 summer TV season, Finnish TV broadcaster 'Nelonen' (C hannel 4) is running a 007 marathon like most countries see most summers; but Nelonen has a cool gimmick on the TV ad campaign advertising the movie series. They call it 'Akkilahdot Jamesin Kanssa' (Sudden Departures with James). The ad campaign looks initially like a TRAVEL company ad, showing luxurious travel destinations and airplane journey maps on a globe, travel to Tokyo or Rio or San Francisco or Venice - with James. And then for the next upcoming Bond feature, they show the 'travel journey' of what exotic foreign destinations we will now get to visit with James (Bond).

It ALMOST seems like someone at Nelonen has been reading this blog haha... In any case, I loved learning about it. Cool idea. And yes, I FULLY endorse any sudden departures with James, to any 007 destination

Tomi Ahonen :-)