Ian Fleming: 007's Creator (2000 Video) User Reviews

Excellent portrait of the legendary Fleming

[stormy-12 · 8/10 · 3 April 2002]

John Cork and his compatriots from the Ian Fleming Foundation, who have created outstanding documentaries for most of MGM's 007 DVDs, provide a fine overview of the life and times of James Bond's creator (found on the LIVING DAYLIGHTS DVD). Rather than using voice-over narrative, Cork and company tell this story entirely through the recollections of Fleming's family, friends and colleagues, combining new interviews with archival footage (including conversations with Fleming himself). As one who has long been fascinated with Fleming and his famous creation, I find this collection of anecdotes, photos and film quite fulfilling; it's marvelous to be able to see and hear so many of the people about whom I've been reading for the past twenty years. No fan of Fleming will want to miss this.

Ian Fleming revealed as "the spy game's" real-life Walter Mitty . . .

[oscaralbert · 8/10 · 11 August 2014]

. . . by a collection of 20 friends, relatives, editors, biographers, coworkers, and mistresses, plus 1960s archival interview footage of Fleming himself, his author\brother Peter, his writer\renter Noel Coward, and nine other intimates. From Fleming's early school scandals and STD's to sibling rivalries and back-firing plots versus Nazis in casinos and Cuba's Castro Boys 20 years later (through Ian's buddy, U.S. president JFK), IAN FLEMING: 007's CREATOR dishes some "dirt," but apparently leaves many stones unturned. Ian's most famous blood relative--actor\cousin Christopher Lee--is on-screen for exactly 4 seconds of this 43-minute documentary (at 3:02 he says Ian's bohemian mom Eve was "very, very beautiful"). Eton school cross country running champ Fleming never outran "the loneliness of the long-distance runner" (dying on his only child Caspar's 12th birthday), despite superficial relationships with an apparent horde of women. Always putting style ahead of substance, he ordered a custom-built gold-plated Royal typewriter years before he wrote GOLDFINGER. It may look like a lot of fun to be James Bond on the big screen, but this piece proves that it was pretty tragic to be Ian Fleming in real life.