BOND’S 60 YEARS IN SERVICE Die another way...
PLENTY OF POISON IN SPY’S MISSION
CAN it really be six decades since Ursula Andress first emerged from the sea, in her iconic ivory bikini, to become the first Bond Girl, Honey Ryder?
Well dust off your Walther PPK, and get out your gadgets, because the 007 film franchise is celebrating its 60th anniversary next month.
The big-screen adaptation of Ian Fleming’s superspy novel, Dr No, was released on
WITH that title, it is only fair that at least one character should be killed by an eightlimbed mollusc.
In the blockbuster finale fight at Octopussy’s palace, Bond (played by Roger Moore) shoves a henchman head-first into a fishtank – the unlucky goon emerging with an octopus wrapped around his face.
Suffocation might seem the obvious cause of death, but in fact Octopussy (Maud Adams)
THE classic bit of chemistry associated with spies is the cyanide pill they are all supposed to carry.
Cyanide crops up a number of times in the James Bond films, knocking its victims unconscious in a few seconds and killing them shortly after.
At worst they suffer twitching or frothing at the mouth.
This is the sanitised and sped up version of the reality of cyanide poisoning – headaches, disorientation, vomiting, convulsions, coma and death – all of which can take between seconds and minutes in real-life.
In Skyfall things get more graphic but less accurate.
The villain Raoul Silva,
October 5, 1962, and Sean Connery uttered those immortal words: “Bond, James Bond”, changing films — and our perception of espionage — forever.
Science and technology have always been a crucial part of the Bond mix, from lasers to biological warfare to floating fortresses.
As a chemist and science author I’m especially doesn’t have just any-old pet cephalopod, she keeps a blue-ringed octopus.
They use the venom tetrodotoxin to block the action of nerves so the victim is unable to move. played by Javier Bardem, confronts M ( Judi
Dench) by showing what happened when he bit down on his standard issue cyanide capsule.
He pulls a prosthetic out of his mouth revealing hideous damage to the bone: a sunken eye socket, rotted teeth and misshapen jaw. Dramatic and unrealistic. interested in the many toxins that pop up in a multitude of grisly ways in the films.
Not everyone would immediately associate the world of James Bond with poisons but there have been a surprising number of toxic substances deployed in the films.
Here are my favourite toxic moments, which you can read more about in Superspy Science: Science, Death and Tech in the World of James Bond, out now:
IGNORE the more ridiculous aspects of this film, like the space lasers.
Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) has developed a nerve gas from a compound found in a rare orchid.
The orchid is invented, as is the manipulated and made useful poison that derives from it. is solid science.
But the idea that compounds Many medicines originate in found in plants can be extracted, plants.
IN BOND’S poker battle with Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) it looks like the baddie is going to lose so he tries to take out his opponent with a poisoned martini.
Bond (Daniel Craig) staggers out of the hotel, sweating and breathing hard, to hook
THE scene where the sadistic SPECTRE operative Rosa Klebb chases 007 around his hotel room trying to kick him with a blade hidden in her shoe is a classic.
Bond (Sean Connery) may be trying to avoid a potentially nasty stab wound, but the audience himself up to a heart monitor and bloodtox analyser.
The results indicate it is digitalis, an incredibly potent heart drug. Ignoring the fact that the digitalis acts far too quickly, the treatment with lidocaine is an excellent strategy. knows far worse is in store for the secret agent if Klebb (Lotte Lenya) hits her target because the tip of the blade has been laced with a lethal venom. The venom isn’t named but many, particularly from sea snakes, can be fast acting.