UK: James Bond veteran Roger Moore talks about his 007 experience as a collection of all James Bond movies is being released on DVD

Gadgets, cars, and car chases have always been as much a central ingredient to James Bond movies as the agent and his Bond girls themselves. Now, for the release of a DVD featuring all the Bond movies to date, Fox Home Entertainment organised a rare treat for those Bond fans that are crazy about the agent's flashy cars. At the Rockingham Racecourse in England, James Bond stunt teams showed off the cars and their gadgets, offering a first-hand opportunity to fans to be a part of the Bond experience. Special Effects Supervisor Chris Corbould has worked on almost all James Bond movies and is sure that the cars are central to the series' popularity. "The car gadgets are always favourites amongst the audience, cars and then showing extra gadgets that nobody else has got, you know the obligatory missiles coming out at the front are always a favourite", he told Reuters Television. Amongst the cars on show were two fitted with gadgets that could either be remote-controlled or driver-operated. True to Bond-style, these cars are fitted with 'missiles, rockets, and machine guns'. The green Jaguar was used by Pierce Brosnan in 'Die Another Day'. Ex-James Bond veteran Roger Moore agreed to support the DVD release and for the occasion dug deep into his James Bond-treasure box. Whilst he stayed away from the most hair-raising car chases he remembered one scene in particular that did not fill him with too much enthusiasm. "Most of the time they were doing the car chases and I was doing something else because they wouldn't let me do most of them. One of the sequences I did not enjoy doing was driving the car in 'A View to a Kill' without a windscreen, the top of the car being taken off, because it's very difficult to drive at 45/50 miles an hour without anything protecting your eyes and also driving through traffic and knowing that traffic's not necessarily going to stop when the policeman holds up a little round disk," he said. Moore added that the high point of his career was being asked to work as Goodwill Ambassador for Unicef, a job he says, was made possible by his 007 status. "Bond certainly gives you a financial security, a notoriety which is particularly useful in the work I've chosen over the last 16 years which is being a UNICEF ambassador and I get media and press attention because they are curious to know why an ex-James Bond is working for children which gets them in, they want to talk about Bond but i can always get the subject back onto the children," Moore said. Since 1962, when the first Bond movie 'Dr. No', starring Sean Connery came out and started what was to become a cult series, the movies, the actors and the girls have been many. Spanning over 40 years, there have been five James Bond actors and many more Bond Girls wowing movie audiences on the big screen. With new James Bond actor Daniel Craig in the upcoming 'Casino Royale', the series looks set to continue to fly high. But earlier this year, the series appeared to have been struck by bad luck when one day after the last scene for 'Casino Royale' was finished, the Bond stage at Pinewood Studios near London caught fire and burned down. When asked whether he was superstitious and considered the fire to be a bad omen for James Bond to continue, Roger Moore said: "I'm not superstitious, I certainly don't whistle in the dressing room and I don't quite that Scottish play. I don't walk under ladders and I don't pass salt hand to hand but apart from that I'm not superstitious but that stage that burnt down, I actually launched the 007 stage on 'The spy who loved me' and Harold Wilson was then Prime Minister, he came to open it, and I had to come to the studio on a Sunday and I had been ill for a week, five days I'd been in bed and my eyes were closed, I had had this terrible thing called shingles, which is not very nice but I remember and I was very fond of that stage, I suffered on it a great deal." And if all goes to plan, there should be lot's more 'suffering' on that stage. Certainly from November 17, audiences will be able to judge for themselves whether 007 continues to be top of their list and determine how long the cars will continue to make history at Her Majesty's Secret Service.

ITN Source | October 26, 2006

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