BEWARE THE SHOE OF ROSA KLEBB: A beautiful Russian blonde has been seduced by Bond's charms and vows to defect to Britain if he agrees to collect her. Expert in torturing enemy agents and extracting information, SMERSH's Colonel Rosa Klebb (playe
d by Ann Robinson) confronts him in a hotel room and a fight ensues. Posing as a chambermaid she pulls out a gun but the blonde distracts her and the weapon is dropped. Cornered, she resorts to a devastatingly devious alternative. A concealed poisoned-tipped dagger in the toe of her shoe – I often long for a similar pair in long queues.
HAT'S ALL FOLKS: Odd Job, the bowler-hatted henchman of precious metal hoarder Auric Goldfinger, hides a secret in his elegant headwear. It is a deadly weapon. A razor sharp steel edge and a deadly accurate eye mean the mute stooge has a weapon capable of decapitating a statue while several metres away. However, his trump card becomes his Achilles heel when it causes his eventual demise – it becomes lodged in steel bars and Bond electrocutes him with a live cable.
WHAT'S YOUR POISON? In Casino Royale, a cocktail promises a worse hangover than a simple a headache in the morning. While Bond battles Le Chiffre at the card table, his seductive girlfriend is lacing Bond's recent cocktail creation with deadly poison at the bar. His quick action of drinking salt water to provoke vomiting and a defibrillator in the car save his life and he manfully returns to the game, much to his opponent's shock, and the admiration of Vesper Lynd who he names the drink after. Gives a whole to meaning to the phrase: "what's your poison?"
THE GOLDEN GUN: He is one of the world's top hitmen who "charges a million a shot" and is so confident that he only needs one bullet to make his kill that he has them made out of gold. Assassin Scaramanga's firearm, in The Man With the Golden Gun, is one of the most innovative in the Bond canon. It can be taken apart and its component pieces are disguised as everyday objects. Each one: a cigarette lighter, cigarette case, pen and a cufflink are all made of gold and can be assembled in seconds.
THE EXPLODING BRIEFCASE: This feature of From Russia with Love is particularly deadly and the more so for its benign appearance. It contains a whole plethora of instruments of death for Bond to foil plans of world domination and defection, from a hidden knife to a collapsible sniper rifle. It makes you look at businessmen in a whole new light – especially ones with gold cigarette lighters.
The full article contains 449 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
