Parliament and Rawson Square, Nassau - Thunderball

An old governmental building is visible behind Bond at Rawson Square

In Thunderball, Bond is meeting up with Leiter, Pinder and Paula in Nassau, before going to Pinder's secret warehouse where Q is waiting. They meet in downtown Nassau, right by Parliament square in front of the Churchill Building. Leiter is looking at some trinkets at a market held on the square.

The market is housed in a building enclosed by columns in pairs on the facade. In the background one old governmental building is visible. These flamingo colored buildings are excellent examples of the colonial architecture of old Nassau.

The building where the market is can still be found on location, in the middle of Rawson Square, although the building has received walls since 1965.

Bond and Paula are heading for Pinder's warehouse in the harbour. The iconic two paired column building is seen to their left

After meeting up at the square, they follow Pinder to his warehouse in the harbour. The building with the columns in pairs can also be seen in Never Say Never Again when Bond meets with Small-Fawcett, covered here earlier. Thus, Connery is back at the same location 18 years after Thunderball when he returned as 007 in the unofficial film.

Kiss Kiss Club - Nassau, Thunderball

Bond is escaping from Largo's men in Thunderball after being taken captive at his hotel. After setting fire to a bottle of rum in the car, Bond escapes through the streets of Nassau. After making his way through the crowd at the Jankanoo, Bond arrives at a club, conveniently called Kiss Kiss Club, where he tries to blend in at the dance floor. Before arriving at the club, Bond runs down a regular street in central Nassau. This location was first identified by Thomas Gleitsmann in 2016.

What makes this location possible to identify is a house with five ground floor windows, actually seen in the film. The remains of this house can still be found in Nassau, more accurately in a part of downtown Nassau very close to Bay Street.

The name "Kiss Kiss Club" is a reference to a phrase which had become very famous in the mid 1960's, namely "Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" which was popularly symbolising James Bond at the time. The use of the phrase is usually attributed to Italy, but according to sources Ian Fleming had actually used the similar phrase 'bang, bang, kiss, kiss' already in the 1950's.

A fictitious sign with Kiss Kiss Club was put up above the side street.

The street Bond runs down is called East Street and intersects with Bay Street, which is the main street that runs through downtown Nassau. Only about 100 meters south along East Street, you find the remains of the house and a small street going east. This is called Miller's Court and is the location where the sign for the Kiss Kiss Club was put up.

John Barry wrote a song called 'Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' which was supposed to be the main theme for the movie which was later changed for 'Thunderball' by Tom Jones, when the producers felt that the movie title needed to be included in the song's lyrics. But John Barry's song was still recorded and was sung both by Dionne Warwick and Shirley Bassey. The instrumental music of this song is also widely used in the film.

  
In the scene leading up to Kiss Kiss Club, Bond escapes through a crowd on Bay Street. This is actually at the intersection of East Street, so Bond running down the street and arriving at the club is screen accurate.

The location of Kiss Kiss club however, was not filmed close to Bay Street in Nassau but somewhere on a beach in Nassau. There is only one establishing shot of the club in the film and it is obvious that it was not filmed close to where the entrance was filmed. The palm trees and sand indicate that this was shot on some beach, which also was confirmed by Luciana Paluzzi (Fiona Volpe) when we contacted her about the matter.

In the far back a mock-up of the entrance gate has been erected.  

The One & Only Ocean Club - Nassau

Bond drives up in his rental Ford Mondeo to the entrance of the hotel 

In Casino Royale, Bond checks in to The One & Only Ocean Club in the Bahamas. He follows a lead from the terrorist Mollaka, whom he tracked down and killed in Madagascar, which points him to Nassau in the Bahamas. Lucky Bond... The One & Only is a luxury resort, located on the northern shores of Paradise Island, connected to Nassau with two bridges.

All the scenes at the The One & Only were filmed at location at the hotel and the roundabout in front of the entrance still look like in the film. The One & Only is probably one of the most expensive hotels in Nassau but if you have cash like Bond, or the Mi6 bankrolling your visit, it is definitely worth it. The service is excellent and the location itself leaves nothing to be desired.

Bond leaves his car to the valet, leaving the front entrance unsupervised, enabling Bond to pretending to be the valet when two Germans drive up in a Range Rover.

"Hello! Are you going to take this or make me wait?"

As Bond crashes the Range Rover and walks into the hotel, the other guests look chocked towards the car park.

If you arrive by car to the One & Only, you can either leave it to the valet, for about $16 or you can park the car yourself at the same car park free of charge. You might want to leave it for the valet like Bond, but it is still satisfying to drive into the car park yourself. The car park is located quite close to the hotel, so the scenes in the film are quite screen accurate.

Bond arrives in his rental Ford Mondeo

Bond arrives in Nassau - Compass Point

When this is posted, James Bond Locations has reached over one million page views since the blog inaugurations in 2011. This post should perhaps have covered a slightly more celebrated location, but as the summer has arrived, it is time to consider what kind of rental car one should choose for a trip abroad and a reminder of Bond's choice in 2006 felt appropriate.

In Casino Royale, when Bond arrives in Nassau in the Bahamas, he takes a rental car from the airport to the One & Only Ocean Club. On his way to the hotel, located on Paradise Island, he passes a row of houses with colorful rooftops as David Arnold's splendid soundtrack is played in the background. The houses are located on the northern shores of Nassau, at a place called Compass Point.

The entire scene is virtually a phone and car commercial, but it is nonetheless a very nice scene and  Bond is guided by the GPS tracking system in his Sony Ericsson phone as he is listening to Radio Bahamas in the car. He ultimately ends up at the One & Only Ocean Club on Paradise Island, located on the other side of the island.

The fact that Bond drives past Compass Point after landing with the sea plane is a factual error, since the airfield where Bond disembarks the seaplane is located on Paradise Island, quite close to the Ocean Club where Bond ultimately is heading, which is illustrated in the map below. Compass Point is a seaside resort.

Compass point is located on the north western part of Nassau - far away from Paradise Island

1,000,000 page views and counting! 

James Bond locations will return. 

Paradise Island Airport - Nassau, Bahamas

In Casino Royale, Bond arrives in Nassau, the Bahamas, in a small seaplane. He gets off at Paradise Island and the iconic Hotel Atlantis is seen in the background. Bond is on his way to the One & Only Ocean Club to track down Mr Dimitrios.

The small airport with a seaplane facility that once was located on Paradise Island is gone today and not a trace remains. But the airport was there at the time of filming in 2006 and the field is still accessible today.

Bond's seaplane lands in the canal in Nassau Harbour, between Paradise Island and Nassau. The opening shot pictures the British Colonial Hilton hotel by the beach as the seaplane flies over.

British Colonial Hilton

The scenes from Casino Royale were filmed in 2006. The airport in Paradise Island mainly operated one airline at the time, namely Chalk's Ocean Airways. Not much information about the airport is available, but Chalk's suspended operations in 2007 after a crash in 2005 and one can imagine that the sea-plane facility stopped being used regularly when Chalk's Ocean Airways ceased operations.

Chalk's was one the most legendary commuter airlines in America, it billed itself as "The World's Oldest Airline". Chalk's flew seaplanes in south Florida and the Bahamas for over 8 decades. The airfield actually played a small part in the Pierce Brosnan movie After the Sunset with Salma Hayek. As her character Lola is about to leave Max (Pierce Brosnan) and take the sea plane from the Bahamas, Brosnan stops her from getting on the plane and asks her to marry him. The seaplane is from Chalk's.