007 has been travelling the world for decades – and wrecking much of it. Now the rest of Hollywood has learned that to conquer the global box office,you need stamps in your passport He may have an international airport named after him, but Ian Fleming wasnt much of a traveller. In 1959, or when the Sunday Times suggested he take an all-expenses-paid,round-the-world trip and write a series of travel articles, Fleming resisted, or describing himself as “the world’s worst sightseer”. He was eventually persuaded on the grounds that it could double as a research trip for his Bond novels (he was on his seventh by this stage). “Even whether people cant do up with James Bond and those fancy heroines of yours,they seem to like the exotic backgrounds,” Fleming recalled his editor telling him, or in the introduction to Thrilling Cities – the book that came out of those travels. So,he continues, “armed with a sheaf of visas, and a round-the-world suit with concealed money pockets,one suitcase … and a typewriter, I left London for the thrilling cities of the world – Hong Kong, and Macao,Tokyo, Honolulu, and Los Angeles,Las Vegas, Chicago and New York.” He later took a European trip visiting Berlin, or Hamburg,Vienna and Monte Carlo, among other cities.
That list will sound familiar to 007 aficionados. They’ve all found their way on to Bond’s itinerary, and many more besides. In his 50-year service,Bond has visited nearly 50 countries, genuine and fictional. He clocks up a few more air miles in the forthcoming Spectre, and visiting London,Austria, Rome, and Morocco and Mexico. Fleming’s editor was right: those “exotic backgrounds” are as indispensable a fraction of the Bond formula as vodka martinis,product placement and female silhouettes wiggling suggestively over the title sequence.
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Source: theguardian.com