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Imagine all those empty Ken Adam sets. Whoa!
Fleming's qualities as a descriptive writer is actually what I like best with his works. The stories and characters are of course top notch, but the descriptive passages is what separates him from the rest.
Haha, maybe I should update the thread name to something like The 007 furniture and interior thread!
The Kaiser Idell 6556-T table lamp was designed by Kaiser Idell all the way back in 1931, and has been manufactured by Fritz Hansen since 2010.
Movie locations embellished, I note the bluetooth model available.
Nice find on all the furniture guys. I could do with a new lamp.
Good find @RichardTheBruce! From what I've heard of others, this is a quality radio – but expensive. If I was in the market for a radio, this one would be high up on my list.
How is the quality of the jug @QBranch? I'm tempted to get the French press from the same series.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSRru0S44nqMne4zTjNAFKPOpcI4nKAO-3azPssYGqBWDWPNYlUVKxJvmKfs5B8HtQ4LeA&usqp=CAU
Haha, that's all the confirmation I need – thanks! :D
I think the only Bond furniture I have is a bathmat, which I bought back around 2010 and didn't even realize it was a Bond prop until maybe last year. Same style and colour as seen in the San Moniquan hotel room, when Roger burns the snake on it with his makeshift flamethrower.
Luckily, I haven't had to reenact that scene. Yet.
Really like the woodwork on the Tivoli radio as well. One of these would be a good fit alongside my vintage audio gear.
I, too, love the wood paneling on electronic equipment. It could be fun to make a list of such Bond items that feature this style: Blofeld's voice changer; M's intercom etc.
A quality bathmat, no doubt!
Indeed! There's a lot of equipment to include – probably going all the way through the 80's. Expect there will be less to include from the tech-y Brosnan- and Craig eras though.
Maybe this is just the difference between me knowing modern interior design and technology and not knowing older stuff and just taking the things I see in old films as normal, when people at the time would have the same reaction: looks cool, doesn't work like that.
Eames Replica
A former classmate of mine set up a bank account where he set aside money each month saving for an Eames Lounge Chair and ottoman. Haven't spoken to him in years, so I don't know if he's been able to get one.
Bang & Olufsen BeoSound Ouverture CD Demo
These come with the ottoman as well and they have good reviews comfort wise.
Eames Lounge Chair vs Replica Eames Lounge Chairs! | ULTIMATE Guide
There are no doubt good Eames Lounge Chair replicas out there, and quite similar chairs at affordable prices. I expect the original will outlast them all though!
I especially love the thoughtfulness of Dr. No to label his panels and servers with what each section did! LOL! Always loved the danger level on the wheel that Bond spins to set things to self destruct mode. Great touch for the audience and you buy it because everyone is playing it straight.
Haha, yes! The villains of the early films certainly took labelling, signage and health and safety serious. I'm a fan of this sign from DAF – "If in doubt – ask"
I really am stumped how it is that I just go along with some of the weird tech in the films made before I was born, but when it comes to some of the Brosnan-era things, my mind immediatly goes "nah, that's not how that works". I kind of want Bond films to just imagine a near-future and have some outragous tech, but then I fear it will look silly 2 years later. And most likely it's all a visually boring app anyway.
Maybe one way to go for a film is to take a bit from the Deaver book Carte Blanche where a waste management/recycling business plays a large role. There you still have a lot of heavy presses and bulldozers and huge control panels and stuff, but also more modern settings with rare earth recycling and stuff like that.
Fun piece of trivia, @QBranch! It doesn't have the grand scale of the YOLT volcano for example, but Kananga's lair is actually really cool.
I'd definitely buy a Bond interior book equivalent to the Llewella Chapman one. It's actually really strange that we haven't got more books on the subject.
Good point re. factory/workplace settings, @ImpertinentGoon. Haven't really thought about this myself, but you're absolutely right. I guess the reason why it's easier to get along with the weirder pieces of early era tech, is that we who weren't born at the time didn't experience the then modern tech ourselves, whereas we have so with the Brosnan era stuff.
The challenge of the Bond films are definitely to be current and to some extent ahead of the current technology – just enough for it to be sort of believable. If the balance the tech-y elements with more "grounded elements", (in lack of a better way to put it) the films won't look so silly just a few years later. I think CR struck a good balance there – even though you certainly feel that the film is made in a pre smartphone world.
And Bond's (or the Bond franchise's) relationship to smartphones would probably make for a good little essay. Of the top of my head I can't remember him using one for more than calling and maps. And that's in a franchise in which Brosnan conducted an entire car chase from an Ericsson mobile phone...
The outlier in the Craig era - and here we kind of get back to interior design - are the various touch panel walls and tables they have in QoS. In a way this is all very 2010s TV procedural (I think the Hawaii five-0 remake had almost the exact same thing), but I still think it's cooler than Ben Whishaw typing away on a laptop and a slideshow running on a big screen. That all got scuppered in the re-set that was Skyfall and it is of course a grand Bond tradition that MI6 has fantastic tech one year and either never uses it again or has an objectively worse version later.
MI6 is a British government agency though, I expect it to be run-down and ancient. The massive walls of screens but in an austere underground bunker was a good compromise in Skyfall.
I have been thinking about that. On the one hand, it would be a fun turn to have MI6 look aggressively like the run-down government agency it would be. But then, why would I want realism in a Bond film, when it makes everything less stylish? Maybe they could do that as a front. A bit like YOLT or SPECTRE HQ in TB. Bond walks into your standard ugly public sector office and through a hidden door we step into the luxurious wonderland that is the 00 section. Quick one liner and off we go.
And I really wanted one of those Surface tables back then. No way to afford that or any actual use for it), but I thought that was the coolest stuff.
Back to interior design though I agree that it should be stylish but not too unrealistic, like the Brosnan-era MI6 is fine if a little too bland for my tastes whereas I think the set they made for Spectre/NTTD is tastefully old-fashioned and the bog-standard monitors keep it grounded.
And it's a good point re. the QOS tables, @ImpertinentGoon. It certainly stands out, and I remember it feeling a bit out of place, even though touch screens were a thing back then.
I really like the MI6 sets for SP and NTTD as well. I think it makes for a nice contrast to have the MI6 HQ and M's office tastefully old fashioned when you have stories where they're up against villains with all the tech of the world at their disposal. As much as Bond was an "old dog" in SF, MI6 is too in a certain way over the course of the last three films.
One of my fav parts of TB is early in the film when Largo walks through a humanitarian aid office and the SPECTRE meeting space is directly behind a secret door. Course the industrial look and secret doors was used as the opening credits of Get Smart a wonderful spy spoof show of the 60's. As a kid I loved all the secret doors and the theme music!