“The Green Hornet,” released in 2011, was inspired by a classic television show from the 1960s, though it was just a decent film. It starred Seth Rogen, though the real star was the tricked out 1965 Chrysler Imperial Crown known as Black Beauty. You can see from the photos and the videos below how this badass classic cruiser would steal the film.
This article from Popular Mechanics gives us some more background. They originally thought they would have to find a new car for the film but then realized they couldn’t come up with anything as cool as the original version. Check out the article to see how they pulled it off.
The most iconic James Bond car, the Aston Martin DB5, first appeared back in 1964 in “Goldfinger.” In his look back at the film, Bob Westal discussed the car and all the gadgets.
No small part of the success of “Goldfinger” was the fact that it was the first film to really bring the gadgetry front and center. In this case, all those gadgets were mostly housed in one place — the world’s coolest automobile. So it was that Bond’s old Bentley was replaced with the more up to date Aston Martin DB5, as customized by production designer Ken Adam and efx genius John Stears.
An early example of the practice we now know as “product placement,” the Aston Martin company supplied a single car (another one was later purchased). As legend would have it, the auto was originally only to have a smoke screen device, but crew members began suggesting so many other nifty devices that James Bond becomes visibly irritated as Q informs him that describing them all won’t take more than an hour.
And what devices they were. Director Guy Hamilton had been plagued by parking tickets, so he was attracted to the revolving license plates that had been mentioned in the novel. Hamilton’s stepson suggested the auto-ejector seat that caused Bond to exclaim, “You’re joking!” There was also the bullet-proof windshields, the oil slick release mechanisms, and, of course, the left and right front-wing machine guns. Not technically built into the car as a practical effect, but created largely through the magic of editor Peter Hunt, the car also came equipped with a wheel-based tire-destroying device. That idea was a more or less direct lift from the killer chariots featured in the hit 1959 biblical epic, “Ben-Hur.”
The car was, of course, a huge hit with audiences and played no small part in the enormous commercial success of the James Bond series throughout the 1960s. Corgi’s model of the Q branch Aston Martin DB5 became the most successful toy of 1964 and one of the most iconic merchandizing opportunities of all time. (It was also maybe the first toy to be aimed at children from a movie containing material thought inappropriate for kids.) The Corgi DB5 was a key part of a worldwide merchandising bonanza that would prefigure films like 1977′s “Star Wars,” financed largely on the back of its built-in merchandising possibilities. David Worrell’s out-of-print 1993 book about the DB5 was aptly entitled The Most Famous Car in the World.
Business Insider recently did a post about the history of the Aston Martin DB5 in the Bond films, explaining how it started and then how it’s appeared in other Bond films. “Skyfall” is out in the US next week, and the Daniel Craig version of 007 enjoys the same vehicle in the latest film. Here’s a photo, and you can compare it to the Sean Connery photo above.
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Here’s a very cool video montage of the awesome cars from the James Bond films. The variety is pretty stunning through the years, though the Aston Martin DB5 by far gets the most attention. As the Bond films started becoming huge cultural events, the film producers could count on the automakers to push hard to get their cars included, so that product placement became and important part of the Bond formula. Companies like BMW made sure to take advantage of the opportunity.
James Bond and his vintage Aston Martin DB5 get back together in “Skyfall.” The new film opens in the US next week and we’ll see Daniel Craig with the legendary vehicle. The beautiful gray version in the movie will likely end up on some cool new posters. If you want to dress up your walls with cool images you can do a lot worse than the legendary James Bond vehicles. If you combine it with slick frames by shopping at a poster frames depot you can get a very upscale look. It’s perfect for a den, garage or a man cave. Pick your favorite Bond cars and you’ll be off to a great start.
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“The Hangover” is an excellent film, and the car from the film is memorable as well. It’s a 1969 Mercedes Benz 280 SE, and I suspect it will get plenty of attention due to the popularity of this film.
