The 63-year-old Brit played the cellist and sniper Kara Milovy in “The Living Daylights” (the very German title of the film). She appeared in front of the camera with Dalton in Vienna for numerous scenes. What memories come to mind first? “The scene in which I was walking through the streets in an old part of Vienna and the tram drove past,” said d’Abo in an APA interview. “That was very impressive because it reminded me of the Cold War era, of all the images I had in my head from the film ‘The Third Man’.”
She also keeps thinking back to a scene in a concert hall: “John Barry (Bond composer, ed.) conducted an orchestra and I pretended to play the cello. That was wonderful.” Has she ever been back here since filming? “No, I haven’t,” answered the Briton, who is “often referred to as a Bond girl,” in German.
“007 Action” (from September 007) is a revised version of “James Bond in Motion”. “We are showing the largest and most beautiful collection of cars and things connected to James Bond that has ever been seen,” curator Nicolas Borenstein promised beforehand. In fact, on an area of 3,400 square meters, you can find pretty much everything a fan’s heart could desire: iconic vehicles for use on land, air and water, Q gadgets and watches. Numerous miniatures provide an insight into the filmmakers’ bag of tricks. Borenstein counted “more than 100 exhibits”. Videos, soundtracks and a bar (it can be a martini, but doesn’t have to be) round off the experience.
While large vehicles such as the flying machine “Little Nellie” (“You Only Live Twice”) or a damaged Eurocopter (“Spectre”) are impressive, the small but fine props document the creatives’ love of detail: for example, an alias passport for 007 or a Hong Kong newspaper that announced Bond’s death in “You Only Live Twice”.
A must in Vienna is the cello case in which Bond and Milovy slid down the snow into Austria in “The Living Daylights” (coming from “Bratislava”!). “It was very scary,” laughed d’Abo. “I had to steer and make sure the cello case went straight down. Timothy was sitting to my right and was much heavier than me. So the thing kept turning – and on one side there was a ditch, on the other the camera team was standing. There were also firecrackers hidden in the snow. They exploded as if someone was firing at us. I have a phobia of gunshots, though!”
D’Abo had no fear of being locked into a role as a “Bond girl”: “You read the script and see what the role offers. “It was a new Bond, a new style, more classic again. And they spent more time in the film developing a relationship between Bond and the Bond girl, my character.”
Chris Corbould, who has worked as a special effects coordinator for 15 Bond films since “The Spy Who Loved Me”, also has exciting memories. Which exhibit in “007 Action” would he highlight? “It’s difficult, they’re all wonderful. But maybe the helicopter from ‘Spectre’. We had it crash into a bridge on ropes.” There’s also the Aston Martin on Lake Weissensee from “The Living Daylights”: “That was my scene! We blew up a boathouse, let the car slide across the ice and then jump over a ramp. What fun! I spent several months in Carinthia preparing. We had to wait three weeks until the ice was thick enough.”
(SERVICE – Exhibition “007 Action” in the METAStadt, Vienna 22, Dr.-Otto-Neurath-Gasse 3, Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays, until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, tickets with time slots: , at all oeticket sales outlets and )
