Ken Adam: Designing Bond (2000 Video) User Reviews

A man of many set pieces

[Chip_douglas · 8/10 · 18 March 2008]

This pleasant little tribute to Ken Adam, the man who defined the look of the Bond films tells us a bit about the man's background (he fled Germany in 1934 and became the only German to fly for the R.A.F. during World War II) and sees him reminiscing about all seven of the Bonds he designed. Old photographs show him smoking a pipe, but during the Bond years, as well as over the course of his interview, Ken is never without a stogie. Adam found ways to craft gigantic sets, filled with scarce furniture, to broaden the scope of Ian Flemming's creation on film. His developed a style that is still evident in the series today and is celebrated for it here by colleagues and peers.

The first set of his to really make an impression in the spy series was the room in which Dent was interrogated by Dr. No in the film named after the not so good doctor. Ken reveals that the most difficult set to work with was the Disco Volante in 'Thunderball' (the breakaway 'cocoon' was a fabrication of his added to a real yacht), with the water bed from 'Diamonds are Forever' coming in a close second. His favorite set by far, and probably his most famous one, was the submarine hangar from 'The Spy Who Loved Me', hence this documentary being on the disc for that particular movie. Also, some of the footage overlaps with the longer feature 'Inside The Spy Who Loved Me'

8 out of 10

"Everything gets blown up in Bond . . . "

[tadpole-596-918256 · 8/10 · 25 June 2014]

" . . . which is rather sad," says Roger Moore (Eon Production Company's third crack at casting "James Bond, Agent 007"), one of 14 co-workers of 7-film Bond production designer Ken Adam interviewed here. Mr. Adam himself also gets to put in his two cents worth, if not a nickel. The start times for each film's coverage are approximately 2:50 for DR. NO; 4:52, GOLDFINGER; 6:26, THUNDERBALL; 7:55, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE; 8:58, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER; 10:47, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME; and 16:00, MOONRAKER. ("Scheduling conflicts" kept Mr. Adam from working on four of the first eleven Eon Bond flicks: #2 FROM RUSS1A WITH LOVE, #6 ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, #8 LIVE AND LET DIE, as well as #9 THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.) Though Ken won as Oscar for the little-seen BARRY LYNDON, he never took home a golden statuette for any of his Bonds (since unlike the voting for Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, the Academy Awards balloting is a farce dominated by petty jealousies among an electorate that is almost entirely comprised of "One Percenters," virtually excluding the 99% of Americans who actually feed Hollywood's maw by "going to the movies."