Filming of Goldfinger

[cannonball]

Lazenby is my favourite Bond I'm afraid, yes go ahead, shoot me. Haters always gonna hate.

My daughter bought me this really sh|t DVD "Becoming Bond" for Christmas, and (really sh|t as it is) there are a few real revelations about how good ol' George "became" Bond. And the reason he didn't do any further films, his own decision apparently. And one that he now regrets. (Don't get me going about all the sequences apparently in Australia with LHD American cars...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_Bond" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

However, I come to this discussion as a Bond fan, who has actually read all the books, many, many times, and that's where my understanding of Bond comes from. The movies are, to me, an illustration, with artistic licence. The books are the real Bond, and OHMSS (the movie) comes very close to the original book; the opening sequences introduced our "new" James Bond very convincingly, and I really wish George had gone further with the franchise.

I actually liked him to Keith,, and felt he could have been a really good bond in future films, glad he did not though, as Roger is my era Bond ,,

[sespie]

I have a vague recollection of a hilarious story involving George Lazenby and his then-pregnant wife taking refuge from the Bond furore at Keith Moon's country house, of all places. Maybe someone more internet savvy than me could track it down, but my (fuzzy) recollection is - Mrs Lazenby had been getting pretty sick of Moon's generally mental antics, loud parties etc. The last straw came when they were discussing/arguing in their bedroom. Her saying this is dreadful and we should go home to Australia. George saying words to the effect of "Oh come on dear, he's not really that bad". Whereupon there was a loud farting noise, the double doors burst open, and Keith Moon drove into the room on a miniature hovercraft. Thereupon, one assumes, Mrs Lazenby rang Qantas.

[felixkk]

As mentioned in the other post (https://www.joc.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=27670" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), I met Bill Woodhouse today. Apart from being a former 541 owner, he was also service manager (not sure if that was his proper title) at Aston Martin when he was told that they were to supply a car for the upcoming Goldfinger film. Bill than said that he'd have to ring some owners to get the actual model Bond was supposed to have- Keith I'm sure will be able to name the correct one- but his boss said that he shouldn't be silly, it of course would have to be the current model. Bill felt that this wouldn't go down well with the Ian Fleming readers, but his boss told him that those were most certainly not the people who'd buy an Aston Martin. They then set about to build all the gimmicks. One of which was the bullet proof shield, which they actually built to be bullet proof, not realizing that this was unnecessary and which weighed considerably. The ejection seat was also functional and was quite dangerous. He mentioned the drivers seat being very hard and uncomfortable because of the weapons case (grenades etc) beneath it. It must have been after the premiere when he took the car home with him one day and was pulled over by a policeman because "the dubious number plates"- the rotating plates had turned or were turning as he was driving. But Bill felt that the real reason for being pulled over was that he was then made to show all the features to the policeman. Once he got home, there was a crowd awaiting him and he had to do the same show all over again. Apparently the car was stolen as was mentioned, but there was some confusion because there was another movie car with different plates also around. No idea!

[felixkk]

Bill Woodhouse with the film car mentioned

EC8E4A36-0D49-4825-8F73-1A00B213048F.jpeg (111.71 KiB) Viewed 1165 times

Quoting from Bill‘s mail:

You will notice the number on the car is different from that I am pictured with, aiming the Luger. There has been much confusion over this, especially when a few years ago they made a very expensive model using the number plate of the car we built for all the speedy road shots, which was built without the special effects.

As I told you the one that I mostly had to drive was overweight and something of a pig as a result but that is the one in my picture. Yes we subsequently built another two without special effects to precede the film around the world for premiers as far as Japan.