Landmarks in James Bond Movies

On our 2019 trip to Palm Springs, the art museum was exhibiting hand-crafted furniture by actor, George Montgomery, alongside his collection of western paintings. There was a photo of the Elrod House, located in Palm Springs, and designed by John Lautner. It showed a small pool and a patio overlooking the San Jacinto mountains. I knew right away that I'd seen it in the 1971 James Bond movie, "Diamonds Are Forever", starring Jill St. John as Ms. Tiffany Case. As usual, I had to point out the connection to another museum patron.
The house also appeared in "The Big Lebowski" in 1998.

Architecture is both art and science. The design of a building or other structure has both visual elements inside and out and skeletal anatomy and scientific and systemic inner workings. Some of what I talk about today will be about buildings, such as hotels and restaurants, but for the most part, they are all landmark places from James Bond films. I will skip the fictional places in otherwise familiar countries (e.g. North Jamaica masquerading as Crab Key Island in 1962's “Dr. No”).

Much of the 007 movies were filmed at Pinewood Studios in London, England. The local Buckinghamshire Stoke Park Club golf course was in "Goldfinger", my favorite Bond film. The Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, where Bond caught Goldfinger cheating at cards with the help of Jill Masterson, was recreated at the studio, 

while Sean Connery was filming the Hitchcock movie, “Marnie”.

The exterior of the Pilatus Aircraft factory in Stans, Switzerland was shot as Goldfinger’s Auric Enterprises, though much of his estate and other interiors were recreated at Pinewood as well.

1963's "From Russia With Love" takes place in Istanbul, Turkey, Zagreb and Belgrade, Yugoslavia, & Venice, Italy. Movie locations are often used as backdrops for scenes filmed elsewhere. While Geneva, Switzerland, and Fort Knox, Kentucky were used for 1964's "Goldfinger", including both the car chase and flyover scenes respectively, the interiors were created on backlots of British studios.

Duke of Wellington (1812-14), Goya

One of the only paintings I can recall from Bond movies is Francisco Goya’s Duke of Wellington portrait showing the defeater of Napoleon at Waterloo.Mr. Bond does a double-take when he spots it in Dr. No's lair. I always thought it was Napoleon! Unfortunately, only the more recent Daniel Craig Bond movies display ‘stolen’ art such a Modigliani and Picasso.

Château d'Anet, France, and Paradise Island, Bahamas were used for the 1965 film, "Thunderball". The Fountain of Diana was originally at Anet but now resides in the Louvre in Paris, where I was able to see it and walk around it while visiting in May 2011.

The lobby of Tokyo's Hotel Okura appears briefly in 1967's "You Only Live Twice". In 1969, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was filmed in the Bernese (Swiss) Alps at Piz Gloria, a revolving restaurant, atop the 2,970m mountain of Schilthorn.

You may recognize these rock (island) formations in Ko Tapu, Thailand as the place that housed the fictitious lair of Francisco Scaramanga in 1974's "The Man With the Golden Gun".



And who can forget the fictional hideout of Aristotle Kristatos in the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, near the town of Kalambaka, Greece, where "For Your Eyes Only" was filmed in 1981?

My second favorite Bond movie is 1983's "Octopussy". She lived in Lake Garden Palace (Jag Mandir)  in Udaipur, India. Other locations used for her all-female circus included Moscow, Russia, Berlin, Germany, and the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).

French Château de Chantilly, located in Oise, was the fictional home of Max Zorn in 1985's "A View to a Kill". Recall the famous struggle atop San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

In 1979's "Moonraker", and Ian Fleming's 1955 novel, Hugo Drax wanted to recreate the world using perfect specimens. He lived in French Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, which had been relocated to California stone-by-stone to become the fictional Drax estate. Interiors were apparently shot at the Château de Guermantes.


His fictional space shuttle factory was shot from the air over the Rockwell International/North American Aircraft plant in Palmdale, California (see link).





You may also recognize the streets of St. Petersburg in 1995's "GoldenEye" with Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. The Contras Dam (a.k.a. Locarno Dam) on the Verzasca River in the Val Verzasca of Ticino, Switzerland also appeared in this film.

Eilean Dona Castle became the MI6 Scottish headquarters in 1999's
"The World is Not Enough".

Tania Mallet

Honor Blackman

Claudine Auger

This post is dedicated to the Bond girls who passed away recently -- Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore in Goldfinger), April 2020 at 94' Claudine Auger (Domino Vitali in Thunderball), December 2019 at 78; and Tania Mallet (Tilly Masterson, Jill's vengeful sister in Goldfinger), April 2019 at 77.