 |
| Wilde arrives in a limousine taxi |
Even though Sweden has been well represented in the Bond girl department throughout the series, Sweden itself has not yet featured as a Bond location. However, Stockholm was the destination for Lord Brett Sinclair and Danny Wilde in an episode of
The Persuaders! 1971. Today, our King Carl XVI Gustaf celebrates 40 years on the Swedish throne, therefore I could not resist to do a special post about one of the few Swedish locations with a Bond connection.
After his huge success with
The Saint, Sir Roger Moore starred with Tony Curtis in
The Persuaders!. Sir Roger chose to do only one season of
The Persuaders! since he suspected that he would get the Bond role when Connery finally stepped down from the official series.
In the episode "The morning after" of
The Persuaders!, Lord Brett Sinclair wakes up in his hotel room at Grand Hôtel and realizes that he has acquired a wife the night before. Wilde who has been in Finland on business has received a telegram from Brett, asking him to be the best man. Brett's "new wife", Kristin, is played by Catherine Schell, who of course played Nancy in
On Her Majesty's Secret Service a few years earlier
, so there are several Bond connections to the series.
 |
| Grand Hôtel entrance. The National Museum is visible in the background. |
Although not being a Bond location in any of the films, Stockholm was the place where Bond killed a Norwegian double agent in the Casino Royale novel in order to receive his double 0 status. Sadly in the film, Craig's second assassination takes place in Prague instead of Stockholm.
"I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double 0."
-
Bond to Vesper in Casino Royale, chapter 9 "The game is Baccarat"-
Lord Bret Sinclair is staying at Grand Hôtel in Stockholm, one of the finest hotels in Sweden and the only Swedish hotel that is a member of "Leading Hotels of the World". It is therefore not a surprise that this was the hotel of choice for Lord Sinclair. Wilde arrives and they set out to find the truth about Lord Sinclair's supposedly new wife. Grand Hôtel is located close to the national museum on Blaiseholmen, a peninsula in the Stockholm city centre. Opposite the hotel on the other side of the water is the Royal Palace. The construction of the hotel started in 1872 and was completed in 1874. Since 1901, all the Nobel Prize laureates with families have been guests at the hotel.
Sweden's last contribution to the Bond series was of course Ola Rapace who played the assassin Patrice in
Skyfall and Jens Hultén, another Swedish actor who got into some deep water with Craig in one of the final scenes in Scotland. As one of the most beautiful capitals in Europe, one can only hope that Bond will visit Stockholm in the future. The city was prominently featured in "The girl with the dragon tattoo" starring Craig and hopefully the Bond producers will realize Stockholm's potential as a Bond location.
---
In the Casino Royale novel, Bond describes his assassination of the Japanese cipher expert and the Norwegian agent when talking to Mathis in chapter 20.
"... It was a pretty sound job. Nice and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No personal contact. The next time in Stockholm wasn't so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. He'd managed to get two of our men captured - probably bumped off for all I know. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just didn't die very quickly. For those two jobs I was awarded a Double 0 number in the Service. Felt pretty clever and got a reputation for being good and tough. A double 0 number in our Service means you've had to kill a chap in cold blood in the course of some job.
-Bond to Mathis, chapter 20, "The nature of evil"-
The parallel with Bond's two killings in the pre-title sequence of Casino Royale is obvious, even though the story has been changed slightly.
Kara's concert takes place in the Schönbrunn Schlossteater or the Palace theater, located in one of the adjacent buildings to the palace. John Barry who composed the soundtrack for the film, his eleventh and last soundtrack, got a cameo as the philharmonic orchestra conductor in this last scene. John Barry's swan song in the Bond series.
Schönbrunn was originally built as a residence for Empress Eleonora Gonzaga 1638-1643, but was severely damaged in the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683. The Emperor Leopold I had the palace rebuilt as a palatial hunting lodge which was then handed over to his heir, Joseph I. In 1743 the place in its present form was expanded and rebuilt under Empress Maria Theresia and until the end of the first world war it was the summer residence of Austria's Imperial family, the Habsburgs. It was inhabited almost continuously during this period and became a cultural and political center of the Habsburg empire.
All of the action in Bratislava were actually filmed in Vienna, and the four gasometer buildings can also be found here, alongside Guglgasse in the district Simmering, some 15 min. outside the city center. The containers were originally used to help supply Vienna with gas. In the film, the pipeline is supposedly ending up inside the last of the four gasometer buildings. This is the most eastern building, 'Gasometer D'. For the film, a fake piece of the pipeline was constructed and just attached to the building. It was probably just a small pipe that looked bigger on screen.
When the buildings were retired in the 1980's the "shells" were preserved and the structures found a new use with buildings constructed inside. Today all four gasometers house apartment buildings, shops and a mall. Very little of the original interior can be seen. But you can always have a nice lunch in the galleria inside the A building, and get as close to Koskov as you can.
Brett and Danny are on their way to the parish office (covered earlier) in a taxi and during the ride we see one of the most exclusive parts of the city. They are driven across Djurgårdsbron over to Djurgården, or 'The Royal Game Park'. The name stems from the game park of King Johan III, which he created in 1579. Since the 15th century the Swedish monarch has owned or held the right of disposition of Royal Djurgården. In the early 19th century, Djurgården developed into a stately residential area when a few foreign dignitaries were given some exclusive land plots. 
In the background you see the buildings along the boulevard Strandvägen, one of the most prestigious addresses in Stockholm along with Djurgården. The boulevard Strandvägen and the bridge to Djurgården were constructed just in time for the Stockholm World's fair in 1897. Part of the bridge and Strandvägen are visible behind Brett and Danny when riding in the taxi. The building used as the parish office is located in the opposite direction so ultimately they are going the wrong way.
Another Varig aircraft, or at least the tail, can be seen behind the Concorde when Bond arrives in Rio. The Concorde did not land at Santos Dumont Airport however, but at the larger Galeão International Airport. Varig also receives a thank you in the end credits of the film.
Even the original pattern on the doors to the real building have been reused on the windows of the casino doors in the studio. In the original circle it says Louis XIV, this has been changed to CR naturally. Lamont did, as always, a splendid job with both the exterior and interior production design. Despite the fact that a large part of the second half of the film takes place in and around the casino, the exterior of the building only features a few times on screen. However, the entrance featured prominently in two of the movie posters. One of the posters features Vesper standing on the steps in front of the entrance to Casino Royale. In one of the trailers, we saw a brief glimpse of the entrance, but that scene was cut from the finished film. The only full view we get of the casino is the first time when Bond arrives to the poker game.
