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Ken Adam’s Midas touch on his Fort Knox set from “Goldfinger”, 1964
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The 50th Anniversary of “Goldfinger” is a gift that keeps on giving well beyond Christmas and New Year’s …
And one of the greatest gifts bestowed to Bond fans and cinephiles alike is Sir Ken Adam opening up his voluminous private archives for public display at a special exhibition housed at the Deutsche Kinemathek — Museum für Film und Fernsehen in Berlin, Germany from December 11th 2014 to May 17th 2015. The exhibition contains more than 4,000 pieces, including his unpublished drawings and sketches, blueprints, storyboards, set-designs, letters, models, awards, rare photographs and film footage.
The exhibition is entitled Bigger Than Life: Ken Adam’s Film Design — a most fitting description of one of the most remarkably daring, innovative and influential craftsman of 20th century cinema. “Genius” is a term so overused these days, but Ken Adam remains the truest definition of the word. The visionary Production Designer who crafted the fantastical world 007 inhabited — both heroes and villains alike — starting with 1962’s “Dr. No” to Adam’s final outing on 1979’s “Moonraker” has won him two Academy Awards, six Academy Award nominations, the British Academy Film Award, and the Order of the British Empire and Knighthood, to name just a few major honors bestowed upon his unparalleled life and career.
From the James Bond franchise, to Harry Saltzman’s “The Ipcress File”, Cubby Broccoli’s “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, “Barry Lyndon”, “Addams Family Values”, “Sleuth”, and “The Madness of King George”, Ken Adam has always been ahead of his time. He’s worked with such famed directors as Robert Aldrich, John Frankenheimer, Norman Jewison, Jacques Tourneur, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and István Szabóand, to longtime collaborations with the legendary Stanley Kubrick, where he dazzled Kubrick — and audiences alike — with the futuristically ominous ‘War Room’ from 1964’s classic “Dr. Strangelove”.
From Ken Adam’s drafting table to …
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… finished set during filming of Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove”
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But it was the spectacle of “Goldfinger” where Ken Adam would first shine as one of the true behind-the-scenes stars. His grandiose set designs soon skyrocketed to center stage. In fact, it’s safe to say they immediately became the centre of the James Bond universe. For it was after ‘Goldfinger’ broke all box office records that Adam’s life turned upside down. Bondmania had thoroughly gripped the world and the problem for original James Bond producers Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman was how to continually top themselves, with a large part of that task falling onto Ken Adam’s shoulders. Huge budgets soon widened the scope and scale of 007’s adventures to outlandish proportions.
Adam told me he remembers “Goldfinger” being the last time he ever had to fight for his boldly unique — and enormously costly — set designs when he envisioned the interior of Fort Knox as “an enormous cathedral of gold,” he explained.
“It was an extraordinary challenge because nobody is allowed in Fort Knox, let alone anywhere even near it. But because of some connections and President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy loving Ian Fleming’s books, I was granted permission for one helicopter fly-over during the planning stages,” recalled Adam, himself a former RAF fighter pilot during World War II. “It was quite nerve wracking, because they had machine guns positioned on the roof. But I was also allowed to drive around the perimeter of Fort Knox, but if you dared get out of the car they were on loudspeakers warning you to keep away…
“So I took as many photos as I possibly could, knowing I could later copy exactly the exterior on the backlot at Pinewood,” chuckled Adam and further detailed in my book For Your Eyes Only: Behind the Scenes of the James Bond Films.
No one actually knowing what’s inside Fort Knox proved advantageous for Adam, allowing his imagination to run wild. “Because I was allowed to visit the Bank of England vaults, I knew that gold isn’t stacked very high because of the sheer weight,” explained Adam. “And the interior of the Bank of England was actually pretty underwhelming, quite frankly. So I decided to make the interior of Fort Knox very theatrical and stylized. I felt that here is the biggest gold repository in the world and the audience wants to see gold! Gold going up to heaven — that is what Fort Knox should look like!
“But Cubby and Harry said to me, ‘Come on Ken, it looks like a fuckin’ prison!’ And I said, ‘But that’s exactly what I want to do! I want it to rise up 40 or 50 feet behind giant bars.’ And it was [director] Guy Hamilton who said, ‘I think Ken has a point.’ After that, it was smooth sailing more or less…
“After ‘Goldfinger’ was released, I remember United Artists got so many letters asking why a British crew were allowed to film inside Fort Knox when even the President of the United States was not allowed inside!”
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As a young reporter back in the ’80s, after the release of “Octopussy”, I had the first opportunity to meet with and interview Ken Adam. He was on location for a high-profile film that just happened to be shooting near my home. It was a strictly closed set for the press, especially given the delicate subject matter and plethora of Oscar-winning actors and director involved with the production. But I didn’t care about any of that. The real star of the film was the unassuming man behind the scenes – the cigar-chomping Production Designer who had created decades of awe-inspiring imagery for the James Bond films. Everything from designing and outfitting the mother of all 007 gadgets — the Aston Martin DB5 from “Goldfinger” — and the submersible Lotus Esprit from “The Spy Who Loved Me”, to Blofeld’s volcano lair in “You Only Live Twice” and Hugo Drax’s space station from “Moonraker”.
(Above): David Giammarco photographed with the original 1964 Aston Martin DB5 at the “Skyfall” Royal World Premiere after-party at the Tate Modern and (below) Sir Ken Adam’s original designs for Blofeld’s volcano lair and then fully-functioning set — the largest ever built — constructed at Pinewood Studios for 1967’s “You Only Live Twice”.
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My newspaper editor at the time didn’t know who Ken Adam was, and quite frankly, didn’t care. He just wanted exclusive interviews with the stars of the film. Since the media weren’t allowed access, he wished me luck on my proposed assignment but must have assumed I’d come back empty-handed. However, much to his delight, I returned 10-days later having landed those exclusive interviews with the big-name actors and director.
But more importantly — at least to me — I also landed a rare 2-hour sit-down interview with Ken Adam and then a personally-guided tour of his set designs. It was the thrill of a lifetime – at least at that point for a young James Bond enthusiast. He couldn’t have been more kind and generous, both with his time and shared revelations of accomplishing feats of pure movie magic on the 007 franchise.
Flash ahead, and as my career steadily progressed, I stayed in touch with Ken and continued many in-depth interviews over the years with the man who made such an indelible cinematic impression on me as an underage kid — one who had to sneak into the theatre to watch “The Spy Who Loved Me” way back in 1977.
Sir Ken Adam and David Giammarco share a laugh at home in Knightsbridge, London – 2001 ( Letizia Adam Photograph )
We still get together at his London home for lunch and various chats on a vast array of subjects, and along with his wife Letizia, am proud to call him friend. As Ken enters his ninth decade, his unbridled enthusiasm for revolutionary architecture, innovative cinema and, of course, fine Cuban cigars has not dissipated. Sir Ken Adam is truly a one of a kind genius.
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James Bond Production Designers past and present: (left to right) Dennis Gassner, Sir Ken Adam, Producer Barbara Broccoli, Peter Lamont, and Producer Michael G. Wilson at London’s “Bond in Motion” opening, 2014.
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“Ken Adam is one of the greatest designers of all time,” Sir Roger Moore told me about his longtime friend, whom he worked with on “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Moonraker”.
“He is, I think, one of the foremost people responsible for the success of the Bond films,” continued Moore. “An absolutely brilliant mind. Everything was for real in his sets, quite spectacular, and also very expensive. Absolutely beautiful and extraordinarily meticulous. It was always rather sad having to watch everything get blown up to smithereens. But everything always gets blown up in Bond.”
David Giammarco and Sir Ken Adam at home in Knightsbridge on the eve of the James Bond 50th Anniversary.
( Letizia Adam Photograph )
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A trip to Berlin’s Deutsche Kinemathek to experience firsthand Ken Adam’s stunning treasure trove of cinema history is a rare opportunity no filmmaker, artist, architect, historian — nor James Bond fan — should miss.
For further information about the Bigger Than Life: Ken Adam’s Film Design exhibit and museum hours at the Deutsche Kinemathek Museum für Film und Fernsehen, click below:
Address: Deutsche Kinemathek
Potsdamer Straße 2
10785 Berlin
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All Text: © Copyright David Giammarco, 2014.
All Photographs: © Copyright David Giammarco / EON Productions / Sir Ken Adam / Letizia Adam / Deutsche Kinemathek, 2014
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY: BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE JAMES BOND FILMS BY DAVID GIAMMARCO 