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"James Bond's Best Movie Sets\nIn 50 years on the big screen, 007 has found himself in many a dicey\u2014and stylishly designed\u2014spot. AD rounds up the best sets from the two dozen films\nDr. No(1962)\n\nFirst appearing in Ian Fleming's 1953 novel Casino Royale, James Bond didn't make his screen debut until 1962, in Dr. No. Starring Sean Connery as the handsome, wisecracking MI6 agent, the film featured production design by Sir Ken Adam that forever transformed the spy genre, not to mention cinematic history. Fleming (right) and Connery are shown here at Dr. No's nuclear-powered Crab Key facility, which, in the movie, was set off the coast of Jamaica so as to redirect rockets launched by the U.S. military.\nDr. No(1962)\n\nIn a career that spanned seven decades, Sir Ken Adam has received two BAFTAs and two Academy Awards for his sleek, futuristic sets, many of which incorporated materials that were at the time uncommon for production design. The German-born artist, who had trained to be an architect, paid tribute to German Expressionism and modernist design with his sets for Dr. No's Crab Key facility,which housed the most unlikely of combinations\u2014a nuclear reactor (shown here) and a five-star hotel.\nGoldfinger (1964)\n\nOne of Adam's most memorable designs was that of the large wood-paneled Rumpus Room in the 1964 film Goldfinger. Located at the Kentucky stud farm of Bond's archenemy Auric Goldfinger, the luxe tack room transformed\u2014at the touch of a switch\u2014into a gas chamber. The space also featured a reversible pool table that, when flipped over, revealed a model of Fort Knox. Also of note is the monumental stainless-steel fireplace, which wouldn't have looked out of place in a John Lautner\u2013designed home.\nYou Only Live Twice (1967)\n\nAs head of the global crime syndicate SPECTRE in You Only Live Twice,Ernst Stavro Blofeld required a fittingly sinister lair\u2014inside a volcano in Japan that doubled as a rocket-launch station. Adam's design (and continuity sketch) from the 1967 film turned into one of the most expensive and complex movie sets of its time. Constructed at Pinewood Studios outside London for a million dollars, it included a working monorail, a helipad, a command station, and a full-scale rocket launchpad. The set required more tubular steel than was used in the construction of the London Hilton.\nDiamonds Are Forever(1971)\n\nBlofeld's hideout in Willard Whyte's palatial penthouse in Diamonds Are Forever (1971) was one of Adam's more contemporary sets. The circular floor design echoed a similar motif Adam used in the famous War Room in 1964's Dr. Strangelove(Adam and Kubrick were frequent collaborators). The leather furnishings, dramatically slanted ceiling, and chrome tubular chandelier look just as chic today.\nThe Spy Who Loved Me(1977)\n\nNo Bond film would be complete without a powerful and heartbreakingly beautiful sports car. For the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me, a Lotus Esprit transformed into a submarine, complete with fins, underwater smokescreen, periscope, torpedoes, and sea-to-air missiles (apparently all after-market options). The Lotus was said to be \"discovered\" by producer Albert \"Cubby\" Broccoli, who happened to notice it parked outside of Pinewood Studios on his way to the set one day. Sir Ken Adam served as the film's production designer and Peter Lamont its art director.\nOctopussy (1983)\n\nExotic locales are another key component of the Bond franchise. The Monsoon Palace in Udaipur, India, served as the opulent residence of villain Kamal Khan in the 1983 film Octopussy,while the nearby Lake Palace was transformed into the heavily guarded island home of jewel smuggler Octopussy (Maud Adams, seen here) and her circus troupe. Designer Peter Lamont created an elaborate lair of a bedroom, complete with a sculpted-bronze octopus bed, a regal corona, and gilded details on the arches and walls.\nTomorrow Never Dies(1997)\n\nMegalomaniac media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) was headquartered at this office building in Vietnam in the film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Bronwyn Cosgrove, fashion historian and cocurator of the exhibition Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style, which opens in Toronto October 26, explains of the thrilling scene where Carver's seven-story banner is split: \"It is symbolic of the splitting of Carver's empire, and inspired by the 1926 silent Douglas Fairbanks film The Black Pirate.\"\nDie Another Day (2002)\n\nPeter Lamont created this Ice Palace hotel for villain Gustav Graves in the 2002 film Die Another Day, which features yet another legendary bit of Bondsian technology\u2014an orbital mirror satellite code-named Icarus. The Ice Palace was inspired by the Ice Hotel in Jukkasj\u00E4rvi, Sweden; producer Barbara Broccoli thought it would make an intriguing location after reading about the gelid hotel in a magazine.\nSkyfall(2012)\n\nDennis Gassner designed Quantum of Solace as well as the latest installment of the Bond series, Skyfall,out in theaters November 9. \"This image was a very complicated set built at Pinewood Studios in London,\" explains the Oscar-winning art director, \"representing a building complex in the Pudong area in Shanghai. The entire set was built to\u00A0accommodate\u00A0a particular lighting scheme coming from LED animations on oversize billboards.\" Lurking behind Daniel Craig's Bond are the Oriental Pearl Tower and a mysterious beautiful woman."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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