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Dr No, Grand Port Royal Hotel - then and now (video)
I just returned from Jamaica and stayed at the Grand Port Royal, in the James Bond "suite" from Dr No. I made this video I thought you folks might like:
youtube.com/watch?v=-5fBBFJuOuU
youtube.com/watch?v=-5fBBFJuOuU
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Very much smaller. This threw me for a loop at first. They shot the room with a wide-angle lens which distorted some of the angles. The wall that meets the window at the far end from the original door is at a right angle. Then it angles off to where you see the door to the bathroom. That original bathroom was cut off to create an new adjacent room (102). They probably also cut the bathroom off in room 101 and combined the two. So 105 as it is now is two thirds the size or less. That wall where it connects near the window now cuts directly across the room to make it the whole thing rectangular.
In 20/20 hindsight, they really blew-it by not keeping the room original so as to be a Bond scene tourist destination. The style and class of that room in the movie was excellent - just the kind of place the character of Bond would stay at.
They may call it the 007 suite but are we supposed to believe the scene was actually shot there?
The outside shots were obviously shot on location though.
Jamaica completely misses a trick when it comes to Bond. Not only was most of Dr. No shot there, but also a large chunk of LALD. And yet if you visit the island there is virtually nothing in the way of tourist attractions.
Goldeneye cashes in on the Ian Fleming connection obviously, but the rest of the island could be really selling itself on the Bond connection but does little on this front.
It could be set. The only few things that might peg it for an actual location is the air conditioning unit on the wall, which a set designer probably wouldn't include (but maybe). The portion of wall that sticks out from where the folding coset was and where the side door was, it's still there and looks to have the same dimensions. And the large window and side door (now 2 glass doors) providing access to the courtyard - still has the same width dimension from wall to wall. Also, the adjacent room 102 doesn't look like part of the original design of the hotel, just like it was squeezed in there by cutting room 105 and room 101's bathrooms off.
But certainly it could be a set. It would be nice to find a few production stills of the filming at the hotel.
The 53 years since Dr No have not been particularly kind to poor old Jamaica. It's economy has struggled, it's environment come under extreme pressure. I doubt Fleming would recognise it as his beloved paradise island. Still, it's a beautiful island, not just as great a place as it could/should have been. Corruption and crime have held it back. Awful politicians. The usual.
It is indeed a set.
But it's interesting to play the archeological role on this.