My grandfather worked on Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965), two of the earlier movies starring Sean Connery as James Bond. He may have worked on others, but these are the only ones we have confirmed photographic evidence for. However we have recently added From Russia With Love (1963) to this page, this is not confirmed but we have some interesting new observations involving two previously unidentified photographs.

GOLDFINGER (Guy Hamilton, 1964) - my grandfather built the model of the U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox used in the film. This is the only photograph we have from this production (picture shown at right).

However, this model survives to this day in a display at the Patton Museum at Fort Knox, alongside a gold bullion mockup also used in the film. Grateful thanks to Paul Drabek for the photos below, which also give a sense of scale of the model and its surrounds.

THUNDERBALL (Terence Young, 1965) - Much of the location filming for Thunderball took place in the Bahamas, in and around Nassau. The photos below feature the Vulcan Bomber mockup, and also the Disco Volante, the 'Cocoon', and the 'third' Disco Volante. The Vulcan appears to have been life-size, and featured in the film when it was hijacked by SPECTRE agents, who stole two atomic bombs to hold NATO to ransom. Click on the photos to see larger versions. The remains of the mockup were left on the sea-bed after filming and is now a popular dive site. It has been well colonised by marine life but features can still be identified (see links below).

Many thanks to Preben Søgaard of BMT 216A - The James Bond Vehicle Library for providing additional identifying information for the photos below. Specifically, positive identification of the Disco Volante, hydrofoil Volante, 'third' Volante and Cocoon; and the two-masted catamaran which also features in the film.

Grateful thanks to Mark Thomas for working some Photoshop magic on the colour photo scans! Some of the prints have not survived the years too well, suffering burnout and general colour issues.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (Terence Young, 1963) - currently unconfirmed, but very interesting potential identification of two photos from our unidentified photos page, by Preben Søgaard of BMT 216A - The James Bond Vehicle Library.

To quote: "Your unidentified photos #20 and 21 shows Fairey Marine boats. #20 is a Fairey Huntsman 28 like the one in 'From Russia with Love'. Unfortunately I cannot see if the boats in your pictures are the ones used in the film. The boat chase was filmed at Loch Crinan, Scotland. See this BMT 216A page, and notice the one man's hat in the two of the pictures! It's similar to the one in your picture #21".

I have added these two photos below, and removed them from the 'unidentified' page. It fits in with the general timeline of my grandfather's work at Pinewood, and there are certainly some striking similarities with the photos linked above:

A Fairey Hunstman 28, potentially at Loch Crinan location.

Possible Loch Crinan location.

Related links:

• Diving on the Submerged Wrecks of Thunderball and Never Say Never Again - fascinating article on a present-day visit to the remains of the Vulcan Bomber mockup, using some of our photos
• Absolutely James Bond
• BMT 216A - The James Bond Vehicle Library - see specific Disco Volante and Vulcan pages.

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Last update January 18th 2016.