Murren celebrates 40 years of James Bond

With 2009 marking the 40th anniversary of George Lazenby’s one-and-only James Bond film, 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the Mürren mountain village resort featured in the film has decided to put together an all new exhibition.

Taking place until this October, Ski Rebel magazine reports that the Swiss resort will be displaying photographs capturing the making of the sixth 007 film. Full details follow below:

Murren celebrates 40 years under the James Bond spell

Four decades ago, the film crew of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service immortalized the slopes of Switzerland’s picture perfect Mürren ski resort and left a legacy that lasts to this day.

This summer the resort is celebrating forty years since the James Bond film hit the screens with an exhibition of photographs on the 2970 metre summit. The pictures show how the filming on the Schilthorn mountain took place, and how James Bond and the film crew managed to cast a spell on the entire valley.

Mürren built its famous revolving restaurant high on the Schilthorn with funding from the film company that made the movie, the first Bond film after the departure of Sean Connery from the role, and the only one starring George Lazenby.

The restaurant still serves James Bond spaghetti, if not a shaken not stirred martini, apparently.

The exhibition lasts to the end of October and is free to Schilthorn visitors.

Keep watching the CommanderBond.net main page—and our brand new Twitter feed—for all the latest news on James Bond-related events happening around the world.

Ian Fleming’s Thrilling Cities and The Diamond Smugglers now shipping

Literary 007 fans will be pleased to hear that the recent reprints of two of Ian Fleming’s non-James Bond novels, Thrilling Cities and The Diamond Smugglers, are now shipping from the Ian Fleming Publications Ltd website.

Unavailable for many years, these works of non-fiction are reissued with introductions by Jan Morris and Fergus Fleming and presented in an all-new limited edition hardback format.

Ian Fleming’s Thrilling Cities

Thrilling Cities is a collection of travel pieces originally written in 1959 and 1960 for The Sunday Times. In it, Fleming turns his inimitable eye on 14 separate cities. The fleshpots of Macao, Tokyo and Hamburg feature alongside explorations of the Mafia culture in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. At every stop he uncovers fresh nuggets of interest. In Naples, for example, he wangles an introduction to Lucky Luciano, the notorious Chicago gangster of Capone-era fame. Written in the days when a De Havilland Comet took 12 hours to fly from London to Beirut, this is a rich and enjoyable tapestry of the world as it once was – a must for lovers of travel and great writing.

Ian Fleming’s The Diamond Smugglers

The Diamond Smugglers is a book that starts with a phone call. ‘One day in April 1957,’ Fleming writes, ‘I had just answered a letter from an expert in unarmed combat writing from a cover address in Mexico City, and I was thanking a fan in Chile, when my telephone rang…” The voice at the other end asks if he’d like an assignment. Within weeks he is in Tangier speaking to “John Blaize”, an ex-MI5 agent now contracted by a diamond firm to break an international smuggling ring. Fleming picks up the trail in a unique piece of investigative journalism that combines treasure and travel, cunning and criminality – the elements that had always attracted the creator of James Bond.

CommanderBond.net recently took a ‘look back’ at both of these Fleming books: The Diamond Smugglers | Thrilling Cities.

Keep watching the CBn main page—and our brand new Twitter feed—for the most up-to-date literary James Bond coverage on the web.

2009 CWA Dagger Award winners announced

According to the official IanFleming.com website, the CWA Dagger Awards were handed out last night in London at the Tiger Tiger nightspot.

The CWA Dagger Awards celebrate the very best in crime and thriller writing, and are the longest established literary awards in the UK. These premier awards in crime fiction are recognised internationally as a mark of excellence.

The shortlist for the 2009 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award is yet to be announced, however. This particular award and the £2,000 prize will be handed out on 21 October 2009.

The broadest definition of the thriller novel is used for eligible books; these can be set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction and/or action/adventure stories. Fleming said there was one essential criterion for a good thriller – that ‘one simply has to turn the page’; this is one of the main characteristics that the judges will be looking for. A book is eligible if it was first published in the UK in English between 1 June 2008 and 31 May 2009.

The judging panel for the 2009 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award will consist of The Moneypenny Diaries author Samantha Weinberg, Sarah Fairbairn, Philip Gooden, Rob Williams and David Wilson. The panel is chaired by Corinne Turner, Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd.

For additional details, visit the official website.

For up-to-the-minute literary James Bond coverage, always turn your browsers to the CommanderBond.net main page. Be sure to check out our new Twitter feed as well.

James Bond autograph schedule for Comic-Con 2009

This year’s upcoming Comic-Con will feature many notable James Bond film stars (including George Lazenby) in attendance and CommanderBond.net has gotten a look at the autograph schedule so you can know when to show up to meet your favourite.

Comic-Con 2009 will be taking place from Thursday, 23 July – Sunday, 26 July, with a preview night on Wednesday the 22nd, at the San Diego Convention Center in California.

The autographs area is located upstairs in the Sails Pavilion. For specific details regarding autograph signing as well as memberships to attend Comic-Con, visit the official website.

The James Bond autograph schedule follows below:

• George Lazenby (James Bond, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)
• Trina Parks (Thumper, Diamonds Are Forever)
• Lana Wood (Plenty O’Toole, Diamonds Are Forever)
• Gloria Hendry (Rosie Carver, Live and Let Die)
• Yaphet Kotto (Dr. Kananga/Mr. Big, Live and Let Die)
• Maud Adams (Andrea Anders, The Man with the Golden Gun & Octopussy, Octopussy)
• Lynn-Holly Johnson (Bibi Dahl, For Your Eyes Only)

• Tanya Roberts (Stacey Sutton, A View to a Kill)

• Virginia Hey (Rubavitch, The Living Daylights)

Stay tuned to the CommanderBond.net main page for complete coverage of all the latest 007-related news.

Pierce Brosnan signs up for The Hunter

Pierce Brosnan has signed up to star in Stanley Tucci’s The Hunter.

Pierce Brosnan

Empire reports that the former James Bond star joins an all-star cast including Julianne Moore and Patricia Clarkson for the indie comedy-drama.

The film, written and to be directed by Tucci, is set among the ‘aristocracy’ of New York’s Upper Westchester County and is described as a coming-of-age story for Brosnan’s middle-aged character, who has to cope with the disintegration of his once-charmed life.

Brosnan’s Irish Dreamtime company will handle production duties along with Tucci and executive producer Steve Buscemi’s Olive Productions.

Brosnan recently starred alongside Clarkson in 2007’s Married Life and in 2004 he shared the lead role with Moore in Laws of Attraction.

Keep your browsers locked on the CBn main page—and our brand new Twitter feed—for all the latest news on James Bond-related events occurring around the world.

Harry Potter battling James Bond for top box office title

James Bond has some serious competition for the title of world’s most successful film franchise.

Although the 007 series currently holds the number one position, Variety reports that this is soon expected to change following the release of the latest entry in the Harry Potter series.

Due out in every major market starting this Wednesday, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is expected to dominate the box office and become yet another smash hit for the boy wizard series.

As it stands currently, the five Potter films have grossed $4.48 billion worldwide, while the 22 official Bond films (Dr. No through Quantum of Solace) hover around the $5 billion mark.

The most recent Potter film, 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ended up with a worldwide total of $938 million.

Keep your browsers locked on the CommanderBond.net main page—and our brand new Twitter feed—for all the latest news on James Bond-related events occurring around the world.

Zena Marshall (1927 – 2009)

007 Magazine reports the sad news that Bond girl Zena Marshall has died at the age of 82.

Born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1927, she is best known by James Bond fans for her role as Miss Taro in 1962’s Dr. No, effectively making her the first femme fatale of the series.

Besides her 007 association, Marshall also starred in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines and on the popular television series Danger Man.

CommanderBond.net wishes the best to her family and friends.

Charlie Higson's top ten James Bond books

The Young Bond Dossier alerts us to a rather fun new update on Amazon.co.uk from author Charlie Higson.

As part of Amazon’s Author’s Choice series, the Young Bond creator has compiled together a listing of his top ten James Bond novels and related books.

The majority of the titles listed are original Ian Fleming adventures, but also included are Henry Chancellor’s James Bond: The Man and His World – The Official Companion to Ian Fleming’s Creation, Ben McIntyre’s For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond as well as the 2008 centenary novel by Sebastian Faulks, Devil May Care.

Higson’s first book listed is Fleming’s From Russia with Love, for which he provided the introduction for in the 2006 UK paperback reprint…

Ian Fleming’s From Russia with Love

The extraordinary thing about Fleming is just how readable his books still are today. He puts most other thriller writers to shame. This was the first Bond novel I ever read. And by chance I happened to start with the best written of them. Fleming put everything he had into this, fully expecting it to be his last Bond effort. In fact it turned out to be the book that finally catapulted Bond into the stratosphere.

Charlie Higson

To check out his entire listing, click here.

Stay up-to-date with all the latest literary James Bond news at CommanderBond.net main page—and be sure to check out our brand new Twitter feed too.

Discuss this Young Bond news in this thread on the CBn Forums, the largest James Bond 007 forum in the world.

SilverFin – Literary 007 Coverage

Blood Fever – Literary 007 Coverage

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By Royal Command – Literary 007 Coverage

The Charlie Higson CBn Interview

The Charlie Higson CBn Interview II

CBn Reviews Young Bond #1: SilverFin

CBn Reviews Young Bond #2: Blood Fever

CBn Reviews Young Bond #3: Double Or Die

CBn Reviews Young Bond #4: Hurricane Gold

CBn Reviews SilverFin: The Graphic Novel

Bond girl Honor Blackman has a licence to thrill at Llangollen 2009

Goldfinger‘s Honor Blackman truly had a licence to thrill this past weekend as she hosted a very special concert dedicated to 007.

The event took place as part of the 2009 Llangollen International Musical Festival in Wales on Sunday, 12 July. As earlier reported on CommanderBond.net, Blackman acted as host for the concert while conductor/composer Carl Davis led the Welsh National Orchestra and soloists Mary Carewe and Simon Bowman through a string of popular James Bond theme songs, including Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and, of course, Goldfinger.

To add to the the Bond atmosphere, there were two Aston Martin cars on show on the festival field throughout Sunday afternoon and evening, and guest of honour at the concert was David Pender Richards, chairman of Aston Martin.

Speaking earlier about the neverending popularity of Bond music, Davis said: ‘The music is terrific. It’s very dramatic and very sensual with compelling tunes. You hear one and that’s fine. But when you hear the series and you see how it’s spot on the style of the time. They always wanted to be cutting edge.’

To view photograghs of Honor Blackman, Carl Davis and others from the event, visit the Evening Leader.

Keep your browsers locked on the CBn main page—and our brand new Twitter feed—for all the latest news on James Bond-related events occurring around the world.

Win Quantum of Solace on DVD

CommanderBond.net is giving away a free copy of the single-disc DVD (Region 1) of Daniel Craig’s Quantum of Solace, originally released earlier this year.

Quantum of Solace

Starting shortly after Casino Royale ends, Daniel Craig returns as James Bond, betrayed by the woman he loved and determined to find those responsible for her death. His pursuit and determination lead him deeper into the criminal organization known as “Quantum” and into the company of Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), an environmentalist using his wealth and power to help overthrow a government in exchange for a barren piece of desert land that will allow him to control the country’s water supply. Forced to work without the help of MI6, Bond partners with Camille (Olga Kurylenko), a young woman on her own quest for justice, and together they travel across the globe in order to stop Greene and seek retribution.

This competition is open to all members of CommanderBond.net (CBn). You must be a registered member of the CBn Forums and answer the following question correctly to be eligible to win. Not yet a member of CBn? Register here now–it is free and only takes a minute!

How To Enter:

To enter, fill out the following questionnaire and send a Communiqué/Private Message on the CBn Forums to ‘CBn Competition’ (Subject: CBn July09 Quantum) by Midnight EST on 31 July 2009 (simply click on the link in this paragraph).

1. All of the following crew members contributed to the making of Quantum of Solace, with the exception of:

1. Daniel Kleinman – Main Title Designer
2. David Arnold – Composer
3. Dennis Gassner – Production Designer
4. Roberto Schaefer – Director of Photography

2. What is your CBn Forum Screen Name?
3. What country/state do you live in?