Would gold paint really have a licence to kill...
SUPERSPY SCIENCE: DEATH AND TECH IN THE WORLD OF JAMES BOND Or is the science in those Bond films mission impossible?
Have you ever left the cinema after watching a James Bond movie and thought: ‘Hang on a minute, could that really happen?’ In Diamonds are Forever, could ernst Stavro Blofeld really extort billions from world governments by threatening to destroy their submarine fleets using a giant space laser orbiting the earth?
In Goldfinger, could the titular villain really kill Bond’s girlfriend by covering her body in gold paint?
If you were on a tiny island in the middle of a lake with five hungry crocodiles closing in, like in Live and Let Die, could you use their backs as stepping stones to hop to safety?
Well, stop wondering. Kathryn Harkup, a former chemist-turned-author, has examined all 25 Bond movies, from Dr No to No Time To Die, and checks out famous scenes in every film for their scientific plausibility.
So we learn that no, Blofeld’s space laser couldn’t generate enough power to travel through kilometres of earth’s atmosphere, never mind several tonnes of seawater, to reach the submarines, let alone destroy them.
As for the golden girl, only about two per cent of the body’s oxygen supply is absorbed through the skin, so having it blocked by paint isn’t going to kill anyone.
And yes, the crocodile hop, skip and jump worked as an escape route — but the real-life owner of
the crocodile farm, stunt man Ross Kananga, who performed the stunt in Roger Moore’s place, was bitten on the ankle during the last take. He survived.
The author is an enterprising, and very thorough, guide to the fanciful world of Ian Fleming’s Bond books and the movies they spawned, full of absurd plots, crazy escapes and fabulous gadgets: fountain-pens filled with tear gas, flame-throwing bagpipes, wallets and lipsticks that discharge poison darts or knockout gas.
Harkup notes sympathetically that, over the years, Bond has undergone ‘ 60 years of being drugged, poisoned, beaten, chased, dropped, crashed, burned and tortured’, and assesses the likelihood of him escaping from all of them. She displays an impressively wide knowledge of the horrible creatures — snakes, sharks, tarantulas, piranhas, scorpions — used by Bond villains to try to bump off our hero.
We may scoff at the news that, in From Russia With Love, the spring- loaded knife in Rosa Klebb’s shoe carries ‘ a toxin derived from the sex glands of the Japanese blowfish’, but yup, Harkup has checked, and those fish do have that toxin.
She’s less convincing when considering the torture scene in Casino Royale, when Bond has his downstairs region flayed with a knotted rope by mathematical genius and villain Le Chiffre.
First, she chattily recommends that ‘vocalising’, like saying ‘ow’, or swearing, has been seen to increase a person’s ability to endure pain, before concluding, ‘Some people might even enjoy the experience.’
She has fun with Bond villains, and their need for massive workspaces. Not content with renting, say, a warehouse in ealing, it must be a hollowed-out volcano crater (You Only Live Twice), with a rocket launch pad; a giant satellite dish under a lake (Goldeneye); or a huge underground cave system (Live and Let Die) — and she is caustic about the drawbacks of each.
Harkup also wonders how all the Bond villains manage to command such complete loyalty from their workforce.
‘The sight of 150 ninjas abseiling from the roof and I’d be the first to throw down my weapon and point towards Blofeld,’ she writes, ‘but these guys fight to the death. You’d need to offer more than a steady income and a free boiler-suit to retain such an incentivised workforce.’
Well-researched, coolly confident and often hilarious, Harkup’s book is a treat not just for Bond fans, but also scientists keen on global domination.