From Scotland with love... where scenery is the biggest movie star
THE images in the Hollywood blockbuster depicted the sundrenched coast of Turkey.
However, the famous chase scene in the 1963 James Bond movie From Russia With Love was not shot in the holiday hotspot but instead filmed on Loch Craignish in Argyll.
It is among Scottish locations in BBC documentary Cinema Gadelica exploring the country’s links with the silver screen.
The programme also details how Stanley Kubrick used the barren landscape around Loch na h-Àirigh on the east coast of Harris to represent the surface of Jupiter in his science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Filming f rom an aircraft, Kubrick used coloured lenses and optical distortion to achieve an otherworldly effect.
The Glenfinnan Viaduct in Inverness-shire, made famous worldwide by the Harry Potter films, will also be in the show. And viewers will see how Ridley Scott’s 2012 film Prometheus featured a scene filmed beneath the spectacular pinnacle of the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye.
The show also tells how Michelle Pfeiffer was filmed at the Quiraing and the Fairy Pools on Skye for Stardust, Mel Gibson’s Braveheart rebellion was staged in Glen Nevis near Fort William, while scenes in Rob Roy were shot in Glen Coe, Argyll.
Presenter Patsi Mackenzie said: ‘Scotland can be gloriously Scottish or it can be the coast of Turkey, the wilderness of Nova Scotia or even the surface of Jupiter. With such a reputation, we can be sure that film-makers will continue to use our landscape in telling their stories.’
Cinema Gadelica, BBC ALBA, December 24 at 9pm.