[SNOWHUNTER] James Bond and I

My lifetime pretty much spans that of the bond movie franchise and I can remember the excitement of going to see my first Bond in the cinema, Diamonds are Forever, even before the excitement of seeing Star Wars.  I actually read all the books back in the 1980s so I knew that in the original stories Mr Bond never goes skiing, although Fleming himself spent a time living and skiing in Kitzbuhel in the 1920s, and he does write that Bond’s family hailed from Glencoe – a fact referenced in the concluding scenes of the last movie, Skyfall.

I moved to live in the Scottish Highlands 30 years ago (no James Bond connection to that move though) and there was laughter in the cinema when we were all sat watching Skyfall a few years back and James Bond was advised to take the A9 up north.  Partly as it’s on the wrong coast for Glencoe but mostly as it’s a notorious road where speeding is not allowed, there are in fact permanent 60mph average speed cameras on over 100 miles of it north from Perth, so not much fun in an Aston Martin.

I started writing about skiing in the mid-1980s and Mr Bond was soon on my agenda.  Every new Bond movie that came out was scoured for ski scenes  and as the years have gone by I have developed a back catalogue of Bond ski (and other snowsports) trivia.

For example did you know that Sean Connery had no ski scenes (the closest he got was dangerous driving down a mountain road by the pretty Swiss resort of Andermatt) , but that the 1969 film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, starring George Lazenby and regarded by purists as one of the best Bond films ever, used a then under-construction revolving mountain restaurant on the Schilthorn mountain above Murren in Switzerland as arch-baddy Blofeld’s (played by Tele Savalas) mountain lair.  The restaurant, named Piz Gloria in the movie, had been started by not completed at the time of filming as finance had reputedly dried up, and was only completed with money provided by the film company for using it.  The Piz Gloria name has stuck ever since and the Bond connections have been referenced there for the past 46 years, with a full cast reunion and the opening of a new ‘007 Walk of Fame ’ this very summer as the latest of several free themed year-round attractions.

The next ski scene, one of the most memorable in all the bond films to date, was seven years later with Roger Moore, still a genuine regular in Gstaad himself, the star of The Spy Who Loved Me.  This time the famous scene – an on ski escape from an ambush in an Austrian chalet – culminates with 007 using his first hi-tec on snow gizmo, a ski pole that fires poisoned darts, before skiing off a cliff.

This apparently terminal move turns audience from shock to laughter and applause as the union jack parachute opens and Bond drifts down to safety.  The film was actually shot on Baffin Island in Canada and the stuntman who took Moore’s place, Rick Sylvester, was reportedly paid $30,000 for his bravery.

In For Your Eyes Only, Moore’s sixth Bond movie, the ski chase was becoming an expected feature.  This time there was another chase on the bobsled run, arrived at via a ski jump and polished off with a quick schuss over a table and around the wall of a ski hut.  All of this was shot in Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy with Bond wisely choosing to stay in the famous five star Miramonti Majestic hotel, located 2km (1.25 miles) from the resort centre and linked by a courtesy minibus should you wish to follow in 007’s footsteps.

The final Roger Moore Bond Film, From a View to a Kill, 30 years ago in 1985 used a pre-intro-credits snow scene in a bid to recreate the parachute success of The Spy Who Loved Me.  This time we see a snowboard for the first time, in fact Bond more or less ‘invents’ this new sport as far as the uninitiated global public are concerned.  Filmed in Iceland, supposedly Antartica for the purposes of the film, Bond starts off on skis, hijacks a baddy’s snowmobile (still the Russians back then), crashes that and then uses the broken-off front blade as a primitive snowboard to surf to safety (with unfortunate tacky Beach Boys backing track).  Roger Moore’s stunt double Tom Sims went on to found the famous Sims Snowboard company.

Timothy Dalton didn’t really do any ski scenes again although he does slide across the Iron Curtain in a cello case over a frozen lake and it was Pierce Brosnan who properly returned the franchise to snow scenes, starting with the use of the French Pyrenean ski resort of Peyragudes as a location for a military base for a battle with Sean Bean in Golden Eye.

It was ‘The World Is Not Enough’ that really got the franchise back on skis, with shooting taking place in Chamonix (supposedly the Russian Caucasus for the purpose of the film), in the January before release, it turned out to be the season when the resort was hit by terrible avalanches.

The filming requires a ski chase for Bond and leading female character Elektra King, being chased by the latest on snow gizmos – paraskis.  These are state-of-the-art low flying/sliding machines – rather like a parachute with an engine.  Filming began on January 20th after local freestyle skiers were recruited as extras and an ex-Soviet bomber brought in.  Balancing all these components was clearly a trick in itself, especially when it transpired that Brosnan is, allegedly, not quite the skier that Bond is supposed to be.  The whole sequence is supposed to the

When the avalanches hit filming stopped so that the 150 strong crew could help with rescue efforts, using helicopters being used .  It wasn’t until mid-March that insurance companies allowed the stars to visit to shoot the required close-up location shots.

It was thanks to The World Is Not Enough and tour operator Mountain Heaven that my Bond connection got a little more personal from just reading the books, watching the films and writing about Bond on snow every time a new film came out.

Mountain Heaven had just launched a few years after the film was released with apartments in La Plagne and offered an intriguing press trip opportunity to “Ski With A Bond Girl’

It turned out that the Bond Girl in question was world champion skier and moguls gold medallist Candice Gilg who jumps 50 feet from a helicopter on her skis and heads off down the slopes, doubling for the female lead of the film.

I was booked with three other 30 and 40 something male ski writers to do this trip when Candice decided she had to cancel for family commitments.  The other journalists cancelled too as a result, but with my tickets booked and the timer in resort sorted in my head I thought I’d go anyway and just ski.

Miracle of miracles, Candice’s family issues’ were resolved and she could ski with me after all, so I had a day with Candice to myself, well with only Mountain Heaven’s boss Nick Williams (in the blue helmet) there too, on the slopes of la Plagne (with lots of fresh powder to boot).  This was where she made the kind comment above that has lived with me ever since, as I huffed and puffed trying to keep up whilst Candice skied backwards over moguls talking on her cell phone.

And so to SPECTRE which opens today in the UK.  Daniel; Craig has not done much on snow to date so it remains to be seen if he gets his skis on or just tests out how well his Land Rover performs in icy conditions in the Austrian Tirol, where the scenes were shot last January.

I’m, booked in to the first UK showing at 7.30 tonight so I’ll finally know.  Then I’m off to ski on the slopes of Solden, already open for winter 15-16 and eat in the ICE Q glass cube mountain restaurant which serves as a key location we’re told, just like Piz Gloria nearly 50 years ago, after seeing the Austrian Premiere at Innsbruck on Thursday (where I’ll be able to tell everyone what happens before it starts).

So I know I have a lot to be thankful for from Ian Fleming’s famous creation.  Thank you Mr Bond!

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