Bond Behind the Iron Curtain?

Napoleon Plural

Doesn't happen much does it? Never in Fleming's books, although Fleming goes there, to give us the lowdown on Tatiana Romanov's life. And twice in GoldenEye, in the pre-credits which take place in 1989, and later on his St Petersburg trip, though that's after the fall of the Iron Curtain, natch.

What about The Living Daylights? Is his jaunting around Czecholsolvakia's Bratislava behind 'the Iron Curtain'? Or is the country merely dominated by Communism? Sorry about my historical ignorance.

highhopes

Napoleon Plural wrote:

Doesn't happen much does it? Never in Fleming's books, although Fleming goes there, to give us the lowdown on Tatiana Romanov's life. And twice in GoldenEye, in the pre-credits which take place in 1989, and later on his St Petersburg trip, though that's after the fall of the Iron Curtain, natch.

What about The Living Daylights? Is his jaunting around Czecholsolvakia's Bratislava behind 'the Iron Curtain'? Or is the country merely dominated by Communism? Sorry about my historical ignorance.

Actually, Bond does visit the USSR in the Fleming novels, although it happens offstage: remember You Only Live Twice. For those who haven't read it (spoiler alert), it ends with Bond, having lost his memory in the climactic battle with Bloefeld at the Castle of Death, by chance seeing the word "Vladivostok" on a scrap of paper. He hopes that traveling there will help him remember who he is. He's captured, brainwashed and sent back to England to assassinate M, which opens the sequel The Man with the Golden Gun.

The greatest of the great, wasted Fleming story lines, in my view (and I like the fact that Fleming left the USSR sequence to the reader's imagination). I know I sound like a broken record, but I sure wish they would remake those two films. It could be updated, since the USSR no longer exists. It could be South American drug dealers, for example.

I forget when the Dalton films were made, but the Czech government was Communist until shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in '89, I think.

Sir Hillary Bray

If you define the Iron Curtain as the Soviet bloc (i.e., forget post-Soviet North Korea and Cuba in DAD), here's when the cinematic Bond is behind it:

--- OP - In East Germany with Octopussy's circus.

--- AVTAK - PTS takes place in Siberia.

--- TLD - Czechoslovakia in 1987 was definitely still in the Soviet sphere.

--- GE - PTS, like Nap said.

Here are some others that are debatable (I say they're not really Iron Curtain):

--- FRWL - The train goes through Yugoslavia (Zagreb, Belgrade). Yugoslavia was communist in theory, but Tito was a maverick who never really was under Moscow's sway. Hard to imagine Hungary 1956 or Prague 1968 happening there.

--- FYEO - He goes to Albania to raid Kristatos's warehouse. Again, Albania was nominally considered Communist, but it was so small and poor that the Soviets (nor anyone else) never seemed to pay it much mind.

--- OP - In the PTS, Bond goes to a fictional place that resembles Cuba, right down to the proximity to Miami and the Castro doppelganger in fatigues. But, even if you assume its actually Cuba, by 1983 I don't think Cuba was really in the Soviet bloc. Again, debatable.

Napoleon Plural

Brilliant stuff, Hilly, I forgot about them! esp A VTAK

NP

jetsetwilly

Sir Hillary Bray wrote:

--- OP - In the PTS, Bond goes to a fictional place that resembles Cuba, right down to the proximity to Miami and the Castro doppelganger in fatigues. But, even if you assume its actually Cuba, by 1983 I don't think Cuba was really in the Soviet bloc. Again, debatable.

It's interesting to note that to most Americans, this is Cuba; but to many British viewers, this is meant to be a post-Falklands Argentina.

No Deals, Mr Bond has 007 rescuing a group of spies from off the coast of East Germany at the very start of the book. Also Icebreaker takes place around the Soviet-Finn border - I'm pretty sure at one point Bond crosses over to the Russian side (of the border of course, not ideologically!).